Leighton Moss - reeds and Bearded Reedlings

Not the perfect day weather-wise, but it was going to be dry, albeit misty, so we headed down to Leighton Moss in the hope of seeing Beared Reedlings ....and we did. Just the two, but they are adorable! Not brilliant photos and I would love ot return on a better day and go earlier in the day to photograph them on the reeds before they descend onto the grit trays. In the autumn they swap from eating insects t o eating reed seeds - they come to the grit as the grit aids seed digestion - clever! 

Waiting ....

..and pictures of reeds - because I like reeds! 

The colours of Wedholme

Looking around - the colours of Autumn are beginning....

Art or crafting...

Some of you may be asking 'Have you been doing any artwork?' .....Well not as much as I would like, but I've been out and about enjoying myself....

I have also though been doing some of my own artwork ....and the necessary evil of crafting! Workshops have been going well too....

A quick exploratory collagraph of Greenland pack ice ...done in a hurry while having coffee with a friend - the plan is to scale it up and plan it a bit more ...

Blencathra oil ...repeating best sellers ...

..and a big oil ...for me - atmospheric - the Gables and Base Brown from Borrowdale. 

Product development - skiing gnomes which will be morphing into skiing Gandalfs.

Cleaning and painting and glittering cones ...a best seller....

Painting mini pics .....

...mini pics which can be turned into fridge magnets on demand ...

Septarian Nodules

With a lack of fossil finds of any significance - I always enjoy looking at the septarian nodules near Ravenscar. 

Robinhood's Bay to Ravenscar

The tides had fallen nicely for our couple of days away - so we were able to complete this walk as a there and back along the beach - not many finds but good to be out and to be accompanied by seals singing at Ravenscar. 

From Bogle Hole to Ravenscar.

Looking back to Robinhood's Bay.

Crinoids..

A small crinoid stem piece.

Ammonite section.

Looking back across the bay.

Ravenscar Seals. 

Rapidly erroding cliffs..

Bempton cliffs - gannets

 A glorious sunny and windy day ... and a Comma in the carpark - summer isn't over yet! 

Note the black iris: a bird-flu survivor.

Speeton: Coprolite mine

As it was low tide and we were passing - it would have been impolite not to! Not many fossils, but the mud was lovely and dry for a change - a nice walk out in the sunshine. The most exciting thing was to see the timbers of what, in the nineteenth century, was once a coprolite mine. Fossilised dinasaur faeces were extracted, crushed and treated with sulphuric acid,  for their phosphates and used as manure. There were small tramways used to transport the copralites to the station at Speeton where upon it was taked to Hull for processing. Not all of the nodules extracted would have been coprolites but many would have been. 

Copralite mine timbers.

A decent belamnite ....  photo at the bottom...

Belamnite pieces.

Shell.

The belamnite ..

Speeton mud/clay.