A mallard – possibly a youngster as it seems to be in the process of growing secondary wing feathers for the first time – standing at the cascading outlet of Newmillerdam lake this morning.
Meanwhile this adult female and her mate were paddling alongside the Boathouse Cafe.
At Newmillerdam most of the black-headed gulls now have their chocolate brown masks but they all seem remarkably laid back this morning with no noisy disputes. Soon they’ll be gathering at their nesting colony at St Aidan’s.
Another reason for it seeming so peaceful is that there are no Canada geese around. Last week I saw a flock of more than a hundred by the canal opposite the Strands and a similar flock on the Wyke.
By the outlet at Newmillerdam a lone coot was diving for freshwater mussels. In the few minutes as we passed by it apparently finished feeding on one and then dived for another. The mussel was the size of a small grape.
Just a taste (in this case a Bakewell and a latte) of the research that I’ve put into my article The bear, the bulldog and the boathouse, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Boathouse at Newmillerdam, in the March issue of The Dalesman, out today.
That chair is on the spot where sharp-shooting French bulldog enthusiast Lady Kathleen Pilkington (see article) sat 121 years ago in 1902.
My thanks to Experience Wakefield, www.experiencewakefield.co.uk for their support when I was researching this article.
11 am: All the geese leave the pond and a flock of about 50 graze on the grassy slope.
After two hours I’d almost finished this spread in my sketchbook but the last Canada goose was drawn back home from a photograph on the big screen of the iMac. I’m pleased that it looks equally as messy – let me rephrase that ‘equally as spontaneous’ – as the sketches done on location, sitting by the outlet of the Thornes Park Fish Pond, sometimes under an umbrella as fine rain fell.
After recent heavy rain Newmillerdam is cloudy and khaki. A great-crested grebe pops up just yards from my table at the water’s edge at the Boathouse Cafe with a small silvery fish in its bill.
Down by the outlet a heron is watching, waiting and stalking its prey, so intent on fishing that it allows me to rest my iPhone on the railings just 10 yards away from it to take this photograph.
Boathouse Cafe, Newmillerdam, 11.20am, hazy sky alto-stratus, a few small spots of drizzle in a coolish breeze
A gulls gets the better of a crow, which stops to preen on the ridge tiles of the boathouse roof.
A juvenile cormorant – brown with a light breast – splashes its wings as it makes its way down the lake in what I presume is some kind of preening routine. It then takes off, skimming low over the water to join seven adult cormorants on their favourite resting place, the boughs of a half-submerged fallen tree.