Francis Hickenbottom’s Nature Notes.
30th November 2011
I was all set to do some watercolour pictures of sycamore leaves a few days ago when I saw that the first gales of the winter were due. On time, the winds arrived and stripped many leaves from the trees but they left plenty of the sycamore leaves that I was interested in.
Every autumn, I like to see the spotted sycamore leaves which result from the tar-
After a slow start, following the relatively dry summer, fungi started to be seen
in the grounds of Ackworth School a week or two ago. In the usual spot, shaggy ink-
There is bad news concerning the local barn owls, only about a month after I was alerted to the occupation, by a pair, of an old barn near the school. I was driving a minibus full of students back to Ackworth late one Saturday evening when I spotted a barn owl by the main road, about a mile outside Ackworth. I returned the next morning and found that the skull of the owl had been shattered by the bird’s impact with a car. Only a day or two later, I was told about another dead barn owl by another of the roads just outside the village. I can’t know the origin of the owls but it is ominous to hear that no noise has been heard from the barn recently.