Artists started appearing on my Instagram feed using sketchbooks to record their lives, places they went and things they saw. It seems strange now, but I don’t think it had occurred to me that I could use a sketchbook in this way (I had associated them with a place for preparatory sketches before going on to do a final piece of artwork).

Since then I have been slowly filling up various sketchbooks, and it has become a very important part of my life and routine. Over this time I have learnt what has worked well for me to keep a sketch practice going…

1. Start with limited supplies and get to know them

You don’t need much to start sketching; something to draw on and something to draw with. But then the art stores have so much to choose from! It is very tempting to buy more supplies before you have really got comfortable with what you have. I have plenty of markers, paints, ink and other supplies that I have hardly used, often bought on a whim because I saw someone I admired using them. Try to really get to know what you have already, and then when you want to experiment with something new, buy a few colours, in shades you already like or use (a triad is always a good starting point) and get to know those really well too.

2. Sketch what interests you

This might sound obvious, but if you like something it will make it more fun to draw and you are more likely to want to sit down and sketch it. I also prefer to sketch something meaningful to me. The nature around me and little moments of my everyday life are things I like to look back in my sketchbooks, so these are my go-to subjects. I love drawing on location and from life rather than a photo, but this isn’t always practical. So if you see something you like, take a photo (and make a folder for ‘art ideas/inspiration’) so you can sketch it later.

3. Start small

A big sketchbook page can be daunting, and takes more time to fill, so start small to begin with. My favourite ‘everyday’ sketchbook is 14x14cm (around 5 & half inch) square1, which I find a perfect size for taking out with me. A smaller page also helps to eliminate beginner stress of things like consistent watercolour washes for example. Also pick a smaller subject matter. A big wide vista is hard to capture and probably will have lots of details, making it difficult to know where to start. Focus on the flowers in the foreground, or zoom in one detail like an interesting doorway, or maybe just draw your coffee cup and snack.

4. Have a dedicated space for your materials

If possible have your own little area for your materials and where you can sit down and sketch. This made a huge difference for me, as I have everything to hand if I had some time to draw. I don’t always sketch here though, and often I sit with my daughter and we paint together at the kitchen table. We have a small trolley of art supplies in the corner of the room, ready when we need them. It might be you keep everything together in box or basket, so things are easy to grab when you want to sketch.

6. Find a community

This is so important, I think it really is what has kept me going. Your art community might be here on Substack, or on Instagram (where I started), or you might be lucky enough to have an art group or an Urban Sketchers chapter near you.

Over the years I have found lots of really supportive people out there, who help answer questions, cheer you on and see things in your art that you perhaps don’t. Everyone is at the different stage in their sketching journey, and I have learnt so much from people I have connected with. Which leads on to…

7. Take courses and watch other artists at work

Most of the courses I have done have been online, and there are a huge number out there (below I have linked to the artists I have taken courses or tutorials with). Beside from the fact that you learn different techniques and tips from other artists, I have found the fact that I have to dedicate regular time to them really helpful. Tell the family; “Tuesday 8pm, I’m doing my art course” and close the door! Some courses actually run live, with a weekly time slot, or others have lifetime access so you can complete them at your own pace, but often with the input from the teacher. There are also so many tutorials and process videos on YouTube that are really helpful, and free.

8. Draw as often as you can

Finding time to draw is often a big barrier to keeping a sketch practice going. Seeing professional artists who can draw everyday can make it seem like if you have work, children, other commitments, how can you possibly fit sketching in as well. I don’t draw everyday, but I do draw as often as I can. I try to utilise little pockets of time, for example while I wait for my daughter at her dance class, or setting out somewhere a bit earlier so can sketch before hand. I have been known to get up an hour early (but not often!), or just reprioritise tasks; do sketching first then do the vacuuming, or go outside for half an hour and leave your phone inside to avoid distractions.

9. Don’t compare yourself to others

Each of us is learning every time we pick up a pencil or paint brush, and will continue to do so for as long as we sketch.

Lastly, don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t compare your art to others. Everyone is at a different stage and everyone has a different style (which develops with time). We also don’t know how many hours they put into their craft; maybe they draw 5 hours everyday? Perhaps they have been drawing for 30 years to get where they have. Lots of people say this, but art is a journey, with no real destination. We should enjoy that journey, taking it at a gentle pace so we can appreciate the little things on the way.

I hope you found this useful? All of this has been based on my own sketching journey, I’d love to hear if you have any tips for helping keeping your sketch practice going…

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Here is a list of artists that I have taken courses or tutorials with:

Liz Steel - has a number of courses from beginner level and up, with a huge amount of content. Liz has great knowledge, particularly from her background as an architect, but with a very easy way of explaining things. Liz also runs a Patreon.

Shari Blaukopf - in depth watercolour tutorials from her years of experience, in a loose, lively style. Great focus on colour mixing, and watercolour technique.

Eleanor Doughty - periodically runs courses focusing on stylised sketching. Also does a monthly demo on Vivify and has a urban sketching course on Domestika.

Ohn Mar Win - loose watercolour and mixed media. Ohn Mar has lots of great process videos on her YouTube channel, and also has a Patreon.

Melanie Chadwick - a mixed media artist inspired by the nature and landscapes of Cornwall. Mel has a lovely course on sketching wildflowers, and offers lots of process sessions here on Substack.

Lucia Leyfield - Lucia offers a whole range of courses in various mixed media and paper craft, all with a whimsical style, base on the countryside and nature.

Leaving behind the cool weather in Ireland, in mid-June we headed off for our family summer holiday in Italy. My dad is second generation Italian, so there has been a long tradition of taking our holidays here, travelling by car from the UK and staying with family in northern Italy. Now my parents have a house in the Casentino valley in Tuscany, and we have been coming here every summer (bar the Covid years) for almost two decades.

Every time we come I am struck by the amount of trees. The valley, stretching north from Arezzo, has been carved out by the Arno River, which rises near the summit of Monte Falterona at over 1,600m (5,250ft). The slopes of all the hills and mountains that surround the valley are covered in beech, chestnut and oak trees, some of which are centuries old. Not far from my parents’ house on the east side of the valley, the Parco delle Foreste Casentinesi extends for over 360 square kilometres straddling the Apennines and into Romagna. But even outside this protected area when I look out across the valley most of what you can see is forest. And with it a huge amount of biodiversity, from tiny insects up to apex predators like wolves and golden eagles.

This is a stark contrast to what I see around me in Ireland, where there is only about 12% of the land covered in trees (and only about 1% is ancient native woodland), compared to about 33% in Italy. Of course there are many different reasons for this (which people more knowledgeable than me have written extensively about), but having visited this area for so long, and seeing some of changes in that time around my parents’ house, it got me thinking more about this vast woodland.

Looking out across the valley full of trees and it is easy to assume that it has always been this way; swathes of oak, beech and chestnut for hundreds of years or more. But actually even only a century ago the valley would have looked very different, with more mixed farming across the lower slopes (although still with large areas of forest). Taking a walk up a track and around the hill from the little ‘borgo’1 where we are staying, a neighbour has been busy over the last few years clearing some of his land to plant vegetables and keep chickens. I remember walking this track about fifteen years ago and it was mostly over grown, shaded by chestnut and oak trees that spilled down the hillside towards the village. Now, with some of the trees cleared, I could see old stone retaining walls, and looking up into the woodland, there were more of them, tumbling down and overgrown.

Another neighbour, who’s family has lived here for generations (they are now in their eighties) remembers in her father’s time, that this whole hillside was terraced, and planted with olives, vines and vegetables. Sheep grazed in the pastures in between, and the woodland was in much smaller pockets. Could this have only grown up in a generation? Actually on a closer look I realised that the trees here really don’t look that old, only a few have very broad trucks, although they are definitely tall enough to create a high, shady canopy.

Looking through a local history book by Giovanni Caselli2, I found this photo of the nearby village of Montemignaio, taken at the turn of the 20th century, showing all the olive terraces covering the slopes. Now this hillside is covered in forest.

In County Kerry the newly created Páirc Náisiúnta na Mara3 covers a large area of mountain uplands, including Mount Brandon and the Conor Pass, but at the moment the park area is still grazed by sheep, munching down almost everything to a short green carpet. I wonder if the grazing pressures were lifted within the park, what this would look like in another generation?

Tuscan wildlife high-lights

On this holiday we didn’t venture into the Casentino National Park, with the heat keeping us local, and the children being happiest splashing about in the River Arno (conveniently damned each summer to form a nice swimming area). However we were lucky enough to see plenty of wildlife within the area of the house and down by the river.

Sitting on the terrace the first evening and enjoying the sun slip behind the hills, there was the background hum of the grasshoppers and crickets. As the light faded (much earlier here than in Ireland) we suddenly started seeing little flashing lights at the end of the garden; lucciole (fireflies)! At first just one or two, but as it got darker more and more appeared, which was magical to watch. The next evening my son noticed an even brighter light on the ground, which turned out to be a glow-worm. Despite the name the European glow-worm (Lampyris noctiluca) is actually a type of beetle, with the flightless female producing a bioluminescent glow from her abdomen to attract a mate. We only saw one other on our visit, so this was quite lovely to see.

Also on the first evening I heard rustling in the leaves at the base of an old walnut tree, and out scurried a hedgehog, along the terrace and into a wood pile! It was only a few metres from where I sat. Over the next few evenings, and sometimes in the mornings too, we realised that there was in fact a little family of a mother and four young hoglets. They were oblivious to our presence, rooting around in the leaf litter and in the flower beds. Given their activity away from the nest they were probably about 6 weeks old, and getting ready to make their own way in the world. At about 6-8 weeks old they become fully independent and will go off to live a solitary life, until they are ready to find a mate.

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The bird life in the Casentino was very vocal, but quite hard to spot. Every time I heard the distinctive call of a golden oriole, I was scanning the trees, but I never saw one, even though they are true to their name and bright yellow. We were lucky enough to briefly see a hoopoe, which always seem very exotic compared to birds I see in Ireland. On our visit last year I was sketching a local old church, set on the edge of a grassy field, when a hoopoe flew down and landed right in front of me.

But most of the birds seem a lot more timid than at home, even typical ‘garden birds’ like robins and blackbirds are shy, flying off as soon as they sense a person nearby. They have good reason to be extra flighty, with an estimated 5 million songbirds illegally hunted a year in Italy, stemming from the long tradition of eating these small birds4. As a child visiting my grandfather in the north of Italy, there was sadly a complete absence of bird song. I’m pleased to say that I did hear plenty of singing on this holiday, with an almost constant refrain of blackcap, wrens, blackbirds, serin, cirl bunting and turtle doves. The jays were also very noisy and had discovered the fig tree in my parents’ garden; often there was more than one, chattering and bickering with each other while they fought over the figs.

Most mornings I went for a little walk around the hill along the neighbour’s farm track, before the sun got too hot, keeping an eye out for butterflies amongst the wildflowers. Italy has an excellent climate for butterflies, and boasts about 270 different species across the country, compared to only 35 in Ireland (where the cooler, wetter climate isn’t so favourable). Being so many, I had a hard time to identify them, and it was only if I managed to snap a good photo that I could work out what they were. Although the best butterfly moment of the holiday came when we were swimming down at the river and a purple emperor butterfly landed on my son’s head! After carefully removing it to some vegetation, it promptly flew back and landed on him again. My son named ‘him’ Butty, and was delighted with his new friend.

My last memorable wildlife encounter to mention was on another morning out looking for butterflies; I was just trying to photograph some marbled whites, when I heard rustling in the bushes. Suddenly a deer leap out and darted across the small cleared field. Then more rustling and a fawn sprung out, following by a female. Both bounced their way up the track and into the woods. From the markings of the fawn, I think they were fallow deer. It was wonderful to see them so close.

Sketching on holiday

For this holiday I had taken a small Sea White of Brighton concertina sketchbook with me, which I filled in one or two panels each day. I find these little books to be a perfect for travel sketching, and by the end of the trip there is a beautiful record of what you have seen and done. You can see the whole of this sketchbook in this Note.

I also took an Etchr sketchbook, my watercolour tin, water soluble pencils, and a few ink pens. I’ll be writing more about what I take out with me when I sketch on location in my mid-month post in August…

I hope you enjoyed reading about my holiday. How about you, have you been away or are you planning a trip? And will you be sketching while you are there? Leave me a comment, as I’d love to know!

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June has been a month of two halves for me, with the first two weeks being quite cool and wet at home in Ireland, and then the second half spent in Tuscany, in bright sun and high temperatures1. Reflecting this my catch-up for the month will be in two posts… the first is the Irish part.

A path behind the dunes

The disappointing weather at the beginning of the month meant that if there was any small, dry window, I tried to get out and make the most of it. After a day of rain, often the evening would brighten up a little, and we would take a quick walk on the beach. Despite the low temperates the seasonal wild flowers were still doing their thing, and a detour along a path at the back of the dunes was rewarded with a beautiful tapestry of colour. There was a huge amount of cheery yellow kidney vetch lining the sandy track, and here and there large patches of yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor). This annual plant is semi-parasitic to grasses, taking nutrients from the grass roots, which eventually weakens the growth of the grasses in the area. For this reason it is sometimes called the ‘meadow maker’ as it helps suppress grass, allowing other plants and wild flowers to thrive. The ‘rattle’ part of the name comes from the sound of the seeds rattling once they are ripe.

Along the same path I found a large number of bee orchids, with their beautiful and intricate flowers, that do resemble bees resting on a thick stork of grass. This is no coincidence as the orchid has evolved to be pollinated by the solitary bee Eucera longicornis; the male is attracted to the orchid’s scent (mimicking that of the female bee) and in an attempt to male with ‘her’ collects and transfers the pollen. However this bee isn’t found in Ireland, or in the northern extremes of the bee orchid’s range, so instead the orchid can reproduce by self-pollination, with a little help from the wind2.

A surprising catch!

On another blustery walk, I watched a great black-backed gull3 bob about on the breaking waves, and then occasional dive down, as though trying to catch a fish. Great black-backed gulls are the world’s largest gull, with a wingspan of up to 1.6m (over 5 feet), and are opportunistic hunters, going for anything smaller than themselves, including; fish, crustaceans, other birds and even rabbits. So I shouldn’t have been surprised (except I was!) when this gull pulled a fish as long as itself out of the water. At first glance I thought it was an eel, but they quickly realised it was a lesser-spotted dogfish (also confusingly called a small spotted catshark4). These are one of the most common small shark species found in Irish waters, and we often find their egg cases, a ‘mermaid’s purse’, washed up on the beach. This was a first for me, and just shows that even on the most unpromising of days, nature can reveal something fascinating.

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Sketching a windy lighthouse

Inclement weather on our stretch on the Atlantic coast is often accompanied by a lot of wind, making sketching outside a little tricky. So one calm afternoon, with some time to spare, I decided to head over to the village of Fenit, with the intention of strolling along the coast path and sketching the lighthouse. When I arrived I was met with a fierce wind, creating choppy waves in the normally calm bay. The exposed path along the beach offered no real shelter, but as I’d made the effort to come, I was too stubborn to turn around. Bracing myself against the wind I walked on until I could see the diminutive lighthouse, sitting squat on Little Samphire Island5, just off the coast. Here the limestone bedrock juts out into the beach and I climbed down looking for a spot that was out of the wind, but the also gave me a view of the lighthouse. After a bit of manoeuvring, I wedged myself between the rocks and was pleased to find the most beautiful view, framed by dancing sea thrift (if you turn up the video you’ll hear the wind!):

After about an hour of sketching, my hands were freezing and my bum was uncomfortably numb, but I was really happy I’d persevered and found this pretty viewpoint.

After I had finished and was walking back to the car, I noticed a few black coloured birds feeding on the short grass in one of the fields. A closer look and I saw they had curved red bills and red legs; they were choughs6. They are a member of the corvid family and use their curved bill for probing in the short grass for invertebrates. In Ireland and the British Isles they are coastal birds, usually on cliff tops, and found only along the western side of both nations. However in the rest of their range, they are more associated with mountains, and are found throughout southern Europe, North Africa and Asia. The only other time I have seen them, is soaring above the rocky cliffs of Glanteenassig forest park, which is much further inland, but also near me on the Dingle Peninsula.

A morning on the Maharees

The weather wasn’t all bad, and one sunny morning I took a short drive out to the Maharees, a sandy tombolo that runs north off the Dingle Peninsula. This always feels like coming to a completely different world, despite being so close to the hills and green fields around my home. A tombolo is a sandy spit connecting the mainland to what was once an island (something you my remember from geography class), and now high sand dunes form an extensive part of the Maharees, looking like miniature mountains. I spent a few hours between the dunes, walking the cattle paths, spotting wildflowers, butterflies and listening to the sky larks sing above me. It was blue sky out here, but looking back at the Slieve Mish Mountains of the Dingle Peninsula, I could see the rain clouds forming. It was a quiet day when I came, before the summer tourists start arriving, but the water sports huts were gearing up for the start of the season, which hopefully is on its way along with some better weather.

I wrote about the unique sand dune habitats of the Maharees in this post, if you missed it and want to see more.

Lastly

All the wet weather in the first two weeks certainly helped the garden grow, and the radishes and strawberries particularly did very well. After I pulled some radishes for a salad, I couldn’t resist sketching them, and dug out a tube of Daniel Smith Quinacridone Rose for their vibrant pink colour.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my first two weeks of June? In part 2, I’ll share my Tuscan holiday and the wildlife I saw there. It was a very relaxed family holiday, so there was plenty of time slowing observing and sketching what I saw around me.

How did June start for you? Leave me a comment, as I always love to hear!

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Leaving my house on the edge of the Slieve Mish Mountains1, I drive down towards the coast, past green fields of sheep and cows with full shrubby hedges, then through the small village of Castlegregory. Turning out of the village, the landscape suddenly changes, leaving the mountains well behind me, everything is much flatter and windswept. This is the Maharees2; not quite like anywhere else on the south west coast of Ireland.

The Maharees is a 5km sandy tombolo3 that reaches north into the Atlantic, with Tralee Bay on one side and Brandon Bay on the other. As I drive along, with the sweep of the sea to my right, ahead are high sand dunes, covered in marram grass, that catches the light and ripples silver in the wind. There are few trees and hedges here, most not thriving in the sandy soil and the harsh salt laden winds that blow through, especially in winter. Carrying on further the road cuts close to the coast, and there is a Blue Flag beach, a popular spot for watersports, and beyond that, more dunes with a silver-green cover of marram grass. The road itself is sandy along the edges, giving the feeling that I’m driving through the dunes themselves, marram grass brushing past on either side.

The light feels different here; brighter and sunnier, bouncing and reflecting off all the sea, sand and silver grass. The houses are low, hunkering down against the fierce winter winds; a mix of traditional cottages and newer low built houses. The telegraph poles lean at jaunty angles, their wires blowing horizontal on a windy day. This area is called Magherabeg, from the Irish An Machaire Beag, meaning ‘the small plain’, although today the landscape has been sculpted into undulating dune hills. Somewhere beneath the sand is Old Magherabeg, the old village of the area, abandoned in the eighteenth century when the blowing sands drifted up and over the houses, forcing residents to move elsewhere on the Maharees.

I stop to take a walk along the edge of the dunes, following the curve of the bay. The waves have thrown up a ridge of pebbles, and I watch my step, as it is nesting season for the ringed plover that lay their eggs between the stones. I see a few plovers at a distance, but I don’t spot a nest. Turning away from the beach I follow a path through the dunes, with the marram grass swishing my legs. Underfoot the dunes have sufficiently stabilised, that there is a short sward, studded with wildflowers; daisy, hop-trefoil, butter cups, eye-bright and germander speedwell to name a few. The grazers here are cows, who are more selective, and therefore less damaging to the ecosystem than sheep would be.

As I dip over a dune, I am suddenly out of the wind, and ahead the dunes and marram grass stretch on in all directions. I stay for a while, looking at the various wild flowers, pleased to spot some beautiful and aptly names bee orchids poking up between the marram grass. Above me the skylarks are singing high up in the blue sky (turn the volume up on the video above to hear them). In the sheltered, sunny hollows between the dunes I notice a large number of butterflies flitting around. Tiny flashes of blue, brown and orange. I follow them until they settle lone enough for identification.

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The dune system on the Maharees is one of the largest in the south of Ireland, a unique habitat that is rightly protected as a special area of conservation. One of the very special inhabitants of the dunes is the natterjack toad, which in Ireland, is only found naturally in County Kerry4. Here it breeds in only a handful of sites, using shallow pools that appear in the dune slacks, then spending most of the rest of their lives in the sandy dunes.

Recently I took part in an evening guided walk to hear the natterjacks ‘singing’ at the start of their breeding season to attract a mate. As the light faded and we walked along to one of shallow pools, the air was filled with sound of singing toads. Looking into the pools, here and there along the edges were these small, warty looking amphibians. Much smaller than our common frog and with a distinctive yellow stripe down their backs, the female laid her eggs in strings (rather than a mass of frogspawn), and will then crawl (they don’t hop) back to their life in the sand dunes.

Back on the road and travelling further along, the dunes flatten. Here there are small fields, divided with low stone walls, these days mainly used for grazing cows or horses. But in the past the Maharees was known for vegetable growing, especially onions and carrots. A few growers still hang on, and local restaurants proudly serve Marahees carrots on their seasonal menus.

Their aren’t many roads out here; a choice of two, one curving west to Fahamore, and one curving east to Kilshannig. Taking the road to Kilshannig, the road follows closely against the curve of the northern most beach of Scraggane Bay, and across the water small fishing boats bob, moored at Fahamore Pier. As I drive along I disturb great flocks of starlings, feeding on the verge, that swirl around the car like flapping leaves, only to resettle further ahead of me. The horses in the fields aren’t fenced in, so occasional wander across the road, on the hunt for better grazing. On one memorable sketching trip out here, myself and a friend were surround by an inquisitive group of horses, getting a bit too close for comfort. Thankfully she was a better horse-wrangler than me, and led them off down the road!

I often drive out the Kilshannig to sketch the old cottages here and wander along the beach, watching the birds on the shore. There is the ruins of St. Seannach’s church, dating from the 7th century, and a small graveyard here, perched right above the water’s edge. Within the old church walls is an even older relict; a 5th century cross, which was moved from an old monastic site on one of the islands out in the bay.

Looking back towards where I have come from, I can see the mountains that run as a ridge along the Dingle Peninsula. On this sunny day, they are a bit hazy, but I can see the clouds building up, slowly covering the tops. As I drive back home, back past the sand dunes and the sunny bay with the children getting their wetsuits on, the clouds have grown dark over the hills. I pull out of Castlegregory, and back onto the main road and into the drizzle. By the time I get back home, the rain is heavier. From my house I can look down onto Tralee Bay and see the Maharees on the horizon, glowing golden, still in the sunshine5.

If you would like to learn more about the Maharees and the small community that lives there, the ‘Will it Stay Fine?’ is a fantastic recent podcast series sharing stories about what makes the Maharee such a special place.

The Maharees is a popular holiday destination, perhaps you have visited or stayed here? I’d love to know…

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May is a generous month of wild growth; all the trees are in leaf, the hedgerows are covered in hawthorn blossom and the verges full of foxgloves, cow parsley and, this year especially, yellow kidney-vetch. The damp fields come alive with bright yellow flag irises, buttercups, and the airy pink flowers of ragged robin. I feel very grateful to be so spoilt for choice in what to sketch.

Walks in the Woods

I enjoyed several woodland walks during the month, the most memorable being my early morning sketching visit to the bluebell woods (which I wrote about here). Being immersed in the carpet of bluebells, sketching under the dappled light and listening to the bird song was a one of those wonderful nature experiences where you just enjoy ‘being’. The bluebell season is fleeting so it is well worth seeking out a bluebell wood to enjoy if you can. Even after the flowers had faded I used my sketch and photographs from the walk to create another piece back at home. While I had been walking down the path into the woods, I saw a hare, who gave me a fleeting stare, before darting off through the bluebells - a magical moment!

On another occasion I took my sketchbook to a different wood, where I had seen the wild garlic blooming in April. The garlic flowers were over, but the warmth of the day was still releasing a gentle garlic aroma in the air as I walked through the trees. The canopy overhead was closing over, as by now most of the trees have burst into their full leafy splendour. As it was the beginning of a warm day, I was pleased to sit in a shady spot by the little river that runs through these woods. As I sat and sketched, I could hear calls of wrens, great tits, willow warblers and blackbirds, all probably feeding their chicks, as the nesting season is well underway. I had hoped I might spot the kingfisher again, but sadly not this time. Although there was a grey wagtail, with its yellow chest and rump, darting around amongst the rocks in the water, which was a delight to see.

Shoreline songs and acrobatics

Now the daylight is longer, stretching on to almost sixteen and a half hours by the end of the month, the lengthy evenings are perfect for walks on the beach.

At the beginning of the month I noticed a different group of birds feeding on the shoreline. With their long curved bills and streaky brown markings, you could easily mistake them for curlew. However a second look reveals a dark stripe through their eye and a shorter bill. These are whimbrel1. Not a breeding native, like the curlew, but a passing migrant, using the Irish shores as a convenient lay-over on their way from wintering in Africa to breeding grounds in Iceland and Scandinavia. Their refuelling stop didn’t last long, and after a week of seeing them, they were gone again. Their appearance in May has been so dependable, that they are often know as the May bird, or May curlew, a sure sign of summer beginning.

Another sound of summer is the melodious song of the skylark, which I hear often when walking through the dunes and onto the beach. These small birds soar high into the sky, so if you spot them they are just a tiny speck, all the time singing their beautiful song. I spent a peaceful hour sketching cowslips among the dunes, and the whole time skylarks were serenading me (well obviously it wasn’t really for my benefit) from high above the beach.

Turn up the volume of the clip below to hear the skylarks singing as I sketched:

In an equally showy spectacle of a different kind, the air on certain beaches with sandy cliffs have been full of sand martins2 chattering and calling as they zip around and skimming over the ocean. They look like they are purely having fun, but presumably they are catching insects.

The low mud and sand cliffs are pock-marked with holes that the sand martins use as nests. Sand martins are the smallest of the swallow family that visit these shores3 (another summer migrant from Africa), so it may come as a surprise that these little, stocky birds dig their nesting tunnels with their feet! Given that the tunnels can reach up to a metre into the cliff, it is no wonder sand martins return back, year after year, to the same breeding sites and nesting holes.

Beautiful butterflies

While it is incredible that birds like the whimbrel, sand martins and swallows migrate such distances from Africa, I find it even more remarkable that butterflies do the same thing. This month there was been a huge number of painted lady butterflies in the garden, more than I remember in other years, reminding me of my childhood when butterflies seem to cover plants and bushes4. While out in the sea (helping the children surf) I spotted at least ten painted ladies flying over the water to the shore. These were likely butterflies migrating from southern Europe, on their way to breed here in Ireland. But this isn’t even where their migration started; a generation before had made the journey from the sub-Sahara. They then bred in Spain and France and this next generation will fly north, some of which make their way to Ireland. At the end of the summer, some of these will then make a return journey, flying at altitudes of over 500 metres back to Africa again. This is the migration pattern for European/African5 painted ladies, but they are one of the most widespread butterflies in the world, so you may have seen them where you live too.

Favourite wildlife spots this month..

One of my favourite wildlife encounters this month, was listening to the song of natterjack toads and seeing them in their breeding ponds in the dune slacks. These are very rare in Ireland, so it was fabulous to attend a guided walk to see them. I’ll write a little more about them and their special habitat in my mid-month article in June.

We also had a family of great tits take up residence in our post box. Luckily my son found the nest before the postman’s letters did! For a few weeks the chicks were very vocal, and we saw the diligent parents going back and forth with insect nourishment. By the end of the month the chicks had fledged and hopefully they have gone off successfully into the world.

Lastly…

If you want to find out more about skylarks in Ireland, including folklore and music relating to them, this lovely podcast episode is an enjoyable listen.

One of the presenters on the podcast is Anja Murray, an Irish ecologist, who has written a wonderful book; Frog Routes, Polka-Dot Newts, which gives fabulous insights to Irish wildlife, and has sections on some of the topics I have written about.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about May in my corner of Ireland. Everything has accelerated at such a rate, there was so much more I could have written!

What does May look like in your part of the world, leave me a comment, as I’d love to know.

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Let me take you on a walk in my local bluebell woods, in Co. Kerry…

A narrow road winds up the hillside out of the village, scattered houses give way to more fields of sheep with their lambs and the hedgerows spill out into the road. It’s early morning, with a blue sky, but a chill in the air as the wind blows in from the north across the sea. Just off the road, tucked away down a short gravelly track is a small gate overhung by beech and oak trees, coming into leaf. The path beyond gently meanders down the slope, through a mix of native deciduous trees, and all around is the sound of birds singing. A thrush flies out across the path and disappears into the cover of undergrowth. As the path starts to level out, there is the sound of gurgling water from the stream we are about the cross. Another path joins at this point, and looking up it, a hare is sat frozen looking back! Suddenly it turns and bounds up the path and out of sight, its white tail flashing against the shadows.

Carrying on, the stream runs along side us and there across on the other side is a haze of blue spread out under the trees. The early morning light has just started to reach over the hills behind, and is filtering down through the glowing spring green leaves. Seeing all that blue, takes your breath away for a moment, and certainly ‘soothes the spirit’. Crossing the small bridge over the babbling stream and we are immersed into the blue. At this point virtually the entire floor is covered in bluebells, with their deep purply-blue nodding flower heads. Narrow paths weave through them, with a trail marked out to keep visitors from straying off the path and damaging the blooms.

Walking along the trail takes us in a loop, through the woods and up a steep bank deeply shaded by old trees. Here primroses, wood sorrel and lesser celandine cover the slopes, along with ferns, moss and of course more bluebells. In the open sunny patches between the trees, the warmth of the sun is starting to release their sweet scent, which delicately perfumes the air. Also in the air are butterflies flitting above the sea of violet-blue; painted lady, holly blue, speckled wood and orange-tip.

Weaving our way back toward the starting point, the birds are still singing, and occasionally flying from tree to tree. The most vocal are the wren, thrush and blackcap, who are singing out for most of the time. Occasionally, in the distance, there is the soft sound of ‘cuck-coo, cuck-coo’.

Now we are back by the stream. It is a good place to stop and have a rest. There is a convenient mossy tree stump (mercifully dry), so I will sit here a while with my sketchbook, and soak up the beautiful surroundings while I draw and paint the bluebells.

I hope you enjoyed that little walk?

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Now you may be interested in a few more facts about this delight woodland flower.

The common name of ‘bluebell’, could of course refer to more than one plant. In America the Virginia bluebell (Mertensia virginica) is another woodland ephemeral, that forms large swathes. In Scotland the name bluebell is given to Campanula rotundifolia, known as harebell else where. And also another bluebell from Spain and Portugal, Hyacinthoides hispanica, the Spanish bluebell. It is a popular garden plant, that looks similar to the native bluebell, but not so delicate and with paler flowers. The Spanish bluebell is a bit of a thug, growing more vigorously than our native, and also hybridising with it, which has caused concern this garden cousin could reduce the prevalence of our native bluebells.

The latin name, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, means ‘hyacinth-like, not written on’. This cryptic name was bestowed by Carl Linnaeus1, referring to the Greek myth of Hyacinthus, a young lover of Apollo, who was killed and from his blood grew a hyacinth flower. In his grief, Apollo inscribed ‘Ai Ai’ (meaning ‘alas’) on the petals. Linnaeus, therefore, gave it the epithet ‘not written on’, to distinguish it from the mythical hyacinth flower.

Bluebells appear in Irish folklore, usually in association with the fairies or sidhe2. These are not kind and wholesome flower fairies, but a dark, mysterious and often malevolent group that would be easily angered by humans damaged or picking their bluebells. A story from the 1930s National Folklore Collection3 from Co. Sligo, tells of an old ring fort:

“In Summer-time and Spring under those trees grow clusters of primroses and bluebells. It is said that if you pluck one of those flowers the fairies will be after you.”

And another story from Co. Donegal:

“There is a woman who lives beside us… One day, she picked bluebells in a fairy hill, and she broke some of the stalks. She went to bed that night, but in the morning there was not any hair on her head. It grew again, but it was never the same colour afterwards.”

Maybe these were stories to discourage over-enthusiastic picking of these beautiful flowers?

They are definitely a flower to be celebrated and I think because of their brief appearance, usually en-masse, it becomes something of a ritual to seeing them each spring. They are also most abundant in Ireland and the UK, with up to 50% of the world population found in these two countries (with the rest confined to northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and a small area of Spain4).

Certainly, for me, May wouldn’t be complete without at least one visit to the restorative atmosphere of the bluebell woods.

Do you have any bluebell woods near where you live? I’d love to know…

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The race is on!

I am always amazed by the speed of change in nature during April. The days, where I live, have lengthened considerably over the month, increasing by almost two hours, to about 15 hours of daylight, from the first to last day. Nature is responding to the extra light, and the increase in temperatures, with plants of all types rapidly bursting into life; pushing up, unfurling, extending their reach and generally filling out as the weeks go by. The trees have a soft verdant haze around them, as their leaves appear with a lushness of zingy spring green.

Wild garlic carpets

For some plants there is a real urgently, the need to grow up, flower and set seed before the canopy above them closes over. These are the spring woodland plants, sometimes called ephemerals, due to the brevity of their appearance. A walk through my local deciduous woodland, early in the month, I saw big clumps of delicate wood anemones, their shining white flowers glowing in the patches of sunlight. There was also a carpet of green pointed broad leaves covering the ground, and on the air was the scent of garlic. Here and there I could see the occasional white star shaped flower, just beginning to open. This is ramsons, Allium ursinum, or wild garlic, a native of woodland floors throughout Europe and Asia.

When I visit the woods again toward the end of the month virtually the whole floor is covered in white pom-poms, with the clusters of star flowers now fully open, providing a rich source of nectar for pollinators. Wild garlic is a favourite of human foragers, collecting the nutritious leaves, which can be eaten raw, cooked, or, often, made into a pesto. But humans aren’t the only ones partial to the leaves, and it is supposedly the first food Asian bears eat after waking from their winter hibernation. Which gives wild garlic its botanical name, as ursinum comes from the Latin for bear. But the bears, and humans, need to be quick, as the flowers and leaves will be past their best soon, as the woodland canopy closes over, and their chance in the sunlight is gone.

Wild garlic is an ancient woodland indicator, as is another woodland favourite, bluebells1. These also carpet woodland floors (although not usually mixed with the wild garlic, as they tend to out compete one another), and I have seen some patches on my woodland walks, but in this part of Ireland, they will be at their peak next month, so I’ll save them for my May post.

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An unexpected encounter

As I was finishing my evening walk in the garlicky scented woods, I heard an unusual, but unmistakable call that sounded like a cricket. It was in fact the grasshopper warbler, a small passerine summer migrant, that breeds in Ireland and Europe, but over-winters in north-west Africa. They are very difficult to spot, hiding in rough grass, or tangly thickets in woodland and scrubby fields. I walked quietly along a path, following the sound, until it was drowned out by the burbling of the river I was approaching. I didn’t spot one. I stood for a moment watching the water swirl, when suddenly a flash of blue was racing towards me down the length of the river. A tiny blur of peacock-blue and orange; a kingfisher! I was delighted! Even though it was only a brief glimpse, it is the first time I have seen one of these colourful birds, and the encounter felt quite magical.

Summer migrant birds starting to return

The weather for the last two weeks of April has been very settled, with warm, sunny days that have come as a relief from all the winter rains. So it was wonderful to spend a few hours down at the local beach with the children and their friends.

While they played games, I enjoyed sketching the broad sweep of the bay. In the background I could hear chatting sea birds, and see them at a distance swooping over the waves. I checked on my Merlin app2 and discovered they were Sandwich terns3. These are the largest terns we have in Ireland, with long elegant wings and a distinctive shaggy black cap. There are five species of tern that breed on Irish coasts, and they are often called ‘sea swallows’, due to their long forked tails and the fact they, like swallows, return from a winter spent in Africa. The largest breeding colony for Sandwich terns in Ireland is at Lady’s Lake, Co. Wexford, on the east coast. There is a long running conservation project here, managed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, that monitor and protect the nesting terns (in fact all five species breed here), including providing nesting boxes for the rare Roseate tern4.

As I didn’t get a good look at the Sandwich terns on this occasion, I went back a few days later with my camera, hoping to see them. The morning was unusually calm and the sea in the bay so still it looked more like a lake. My son and I were up early, and he was happy to play in the rock pools while I kept a lookout for sea birds. Low cloud hung over the hills and everything was strangely quiet. No noisy terns, only the occasional cry of one common gull on a rock. Then suddenly out of the quiet I heard a very different bird to what I was expecting; ‘cuck-coo, cuck-coo’! A bird, I’m sure, most people could recognise from that call.

Like the terns and swallows, the common cuckoo, also migrates from western and central Africa, back to Europe to breed. But unlike all other birds in Ireland, the cuckoo is famous for laying their eggs in the nest of another bird, who become surrogate parents to the fast growing chick. The nest they chose varies, but in Ireland it tends to be a meadow pipit, a small common bird that resembles a petite thrush. Remarkably the female cuckoo that favour a particular host nest, lays eggs that mimic that bird. So for meadow pipit nests they would be pale with brown speckles, but if the cuckoo favoured a dunnock nest, for example, the eggs would be duck-egg blue. This loyalty is passed on to their offspring, who will go on the lay in the same type of nest as the ‘parents’ who raised them. This is why cuckoo often return to the same area to breed, to ensure they will always find the right host nests. A cuckoo tagged in Killarney National Park, Co. Kerry, three years ago, has returned back to the same area each year, after a 9,000km trip from Ghana. You can follow the journey made by Cores (named after the mountain he was tagged on), along with some other cuckoos here.

I have since heard a cuckoo calling closer to my home, and I wonder if this is the same one I heard this time last year?

Most surprising nature spot this month…

We found a common lizard in the garden, which even though they are native to Ireland, was a bit of a surprise (especially on a cool, over-cast day). At first we thought it was a newt, but on closer inspection realised it was a reptile, not an amphibian. The common lizard is, in fact, the only native reptile we have on this island (if to be believed, St. Patrick drove out all the snakes), and although wide-spread, not necessarily easy to spot. So it was wonderful to see one, and to know that they are living in our garden.

Lastly…

If you want some further information on cuckoos, terns or wild garlic, you might find these interesting:

The series of podcasts Feather & Flock are a wonderful listen, combining ecology, folklore and music on a variety of Irish birds. You can listen to their episodes on the cuckoo and terns.

This short podcast gives some more information on wild garlic in Ireland.

I have been reading Ireland Through Birds by Conor W. O’Brien, which has a chapter on the cuckoo. The book is a fascinating, personal journey discovering twelve iconic birds of Ireland, combining natural history with Conor’s quest to see all twelve birds in different parts of the country.

I really hope you have enjoyed reading about what April has been like in my corner of Ireland. There has been such a burst of growth, I didn't even mention half of the things I had spotted, so I’ll leave you with some of the wild flowers I saw…

I’d love to know what April has been like for you in your part of the world…

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So far April has been wet here in the west of Ireland; certainly living up to the Atlantic Rainforest tag1. But despite the rain, the spring flowers are making an appearance with wood anemone, primrose and lesser celandine all brightening up the woodland floor, and bluebells and wild garlic just beginning to open. There is something though, that particularly loves the damp conditions and is now beginning to push up and unfurl; ferns.

Ferns are one of the earliest plant groups, with fossil records of them from more than 300 million years ago. They dominated the landscape during the Carboniferous period, during which time much of the British Isles and Ireland were covered in swampy conditions. Here huge, towering horsetails, ferns and trees ferns (some growing up to 30 metres tall), provided food for dinosaurs.

These monstrous sized ferns are the ancestors of what we see today, and one of oldest still surviving is bracken, Pteridium aquilinum, which has been found in the fossil records from 55 million years ago. Bracken is Ireland’s most common and largest fern, growing up to 2 metres (6 and half feet) or more. Where I live, the hillsides in the autumn and winter turn a lovely warm rusty colour as the bracken fronds die down. However if you have bracken growing where you don’t want it, it can be a nuisance to get rid of. Its thick, black rhizomes look like a mass of cables and are very difficult to dig through. Bracken will quickly dominate an area, spreading via these rhizomes, and by wind blown spores. It also produces chemical compounds that inhibit the germination and growth of other plants. In the past this abundance was put to good use; for bedding, thatching, and the rhizomes for tanning leather. The young shoots were even eaten (raw or pickled), although it is really not advisable as all parts of the plant are known to be toxic2.

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As I take a short walk through the overgrown fields and small patches of woodland near our house, I can see ferns everywhere. Many are in the early stages of unfurling their delicate looking fronds, though some evergreen varieties are in full ‘leaf’, with a mixture of old tatty fronds and new ones appearing. They range in size, from knee high, down to tiny specimens growing between gaps in the old stone walls. Most have a distinctive ‘ferny’ appearance, but the Hart’s tongue fern, looks like its name; long green tongues, or the newest fronds maybe like pale green flames. They add a beautiful, atmospheric quality; interesting shapes and textures, all in different shades of green. Of course ferns have no need for colourful flowers, as they reproduce the way they have done for millions of years; by tiny spores released into the wind from the underside of their fronds. Moisture is a key ingredient in their reproduction, which is why they are so abundant everywhere in Ireland.

The delicate and atmospheric nature of ferns is perhaps what caught the Victorians on to pteridomania, the craze of fern collecting. Enabled by the newly invented Wardian Case3 (a sort of portable mini greenhouse) which allowed plants to be transported overseas on long journeys. This brought new and exotic plants into the lives of the Victorians, and in the smog filled cities, the new Wardian cases allowed them to be grown at home. Such exotics may have been out of reach of many people, but a similar look could easily be achieved by plundering ferns from the wild! In mid 19th century Britain, the recently expanded railway system meant that city dwellers could quickly arrive in the countryside, take an invigorating hike and collect some ferns for their collection. Of course, the rarest ferns were the most prized, and some, like the Killarney fern4, were nearly hunted to extinction.

“…no home was complete without a fern under glass.”

Declared John Mollison in his 1877 book, The New Practical Window Gardener

Towards the end of the 19th century this fern fever inspired a plant collector from Kells Bay House, County Kerry, to bring back from New Zealand a specimen of the tree fern Dicksonia Antarctica, in 1890. Since then the spores from this ‘mother’ plant have created a whole tree fern forest in this corner of Ireland. Thankfully the gardens are open to the public, and it is a magically place to visit, with now over 600 tree ferns filling the gardens.

From giant tree ferns of New Zealand, to a tiny Mousetail fern, newly discovered in a remote part of Killarney National Park. This diminutive fern has only been found in the cloud forests of the Caribbean, so how it came to be in south west Ireland is a bit of a mystery. Apparently the remote locations the ferns were found in, rules out human intervention, and scientists theorise that the spores travelled thousands of miles on the wind before finding the perfect conditions in Killarney5!

Thanks for reading…

Are ferns common where you live? Are you a fern-fan? I’d love to know…

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Spring has sprung!

Even though the 1st February is the traditional start of spring in Ireland, it never truly feels like it. So the meteorological start on the 1st March does feel more appropriate, and seems to align with nature stirring into the growing season once again. Here in the northern hemisphere the day light hours are lengthening, so once the Vernal Equinox, on the 20th of the month, has passed, the hours of light are more than the hours of darkness (thank goodness!).

This is definitely something to celebrate, and has been marked in Ireland as long ago as 3,000BC. In County Meath at Sliabh na Caillí (Hill of the Crone/Hag), an ancient passage tomb from this period, has a central chamber with carving on the back wall. The passage to the chamber is so aligned that at sunrise on the Spring Equinox, the light hits the back wall, illuminating the solar symbols carved on the wall. The same happens again at the Autumn Equinox, when the alignment will be the same1.

What is a shamrock?

The Spring Equinox falls close to another day celebrated in Ireland (and globally too), which is St Patrick’s Day, on the 17th of the month. Here it is a public holiday, with most towns hosting a traditional parade2, as ours did, with the local clubs, teams and community groups parading colourfully through the streets. Of course, the predominant colour was green, and a ubiquitous symbol was the shamrock, traditionally connected with St Patrick and now a trademarked emblem of Ireland3.

But what is a shamrock anyway? There is no plant called shamrock, and several species with trifoliate leaves seem to fit the bill. In Irish the word seamróg (from which shamrock derives), means ‘little clover’…but what is that? After years of botanical debate the question was posed, in 1892, to the Irish people, with a survey asking them to send in samples of what they considered to be the ‘real’ shamrock. This survey was repeated almost a hundred years later, and in both instances the clear winner was Trifolium dubnium, Lesser Trefoil. Personally, I prefer the look of another contender, Oxalis acetosella or Wood Sorrel. What do you think? I’ve sketched them both for comparison.

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Pussy willow and catkins

There are over 100 species of wild bee in Ireland, and more than 180 types of hoverflies (often mistaken for bees or wasps, with their yellow and black stripes). Many of these hibernate during the winter, and as the weather warms up in March, will start to emerge. Their timing should4 coincide with a plentiful supply of food, in the form of spring flowers full of nectar and pollen. But it is not only the flowering plants at our feet that are important; the tree canopy can provide a vital supply too.

Around where I live one of the commonest trees is the willow, although it may not be the one you are familiar with if you are picturing a majestic weeping willow by the riverside. These are Goat Willow, Salix caprea, also know as the Pussy Willow. And right now their branches are full of fluffy silver pom-poms, that are bursting into a mini yellow bottle-brushes, laden with pollen. Stand under one of these trees and the air is full of the buzz and hum of early pollinators looking for food.

Willows are dioecious, meaning the male and female flowers grow on different trees, with the male catkins (flowers) being the fluffy yellow puffs, while the female catkins are longer, green and spiky. Willows can be pollinated by the wind, but also produce plentiful nectar, so getting the best of both worlds, with insect pollination as well.

Goat willow differs from many other species of the Salix family by having wide, oval leaves, so by the time their distinguishing catkins have gone, they may be hard to place. Like most willows, they favour damp ground, so grow very well in our wet climate. In a month or so the air fills with their light, downy seeds, that catch the light like fairy fluff. The seed germinate quickly, taking advantage of any bare earth, and will then grow rapidly, putting on 3-4metres of growth in their first few years. This fast growth has been exploited by humans for centuries, but cutting willows back to produce long, flexible rods used for weaving. In Ireland the common name for willow is Sally, from both the Irish, Saileach and the Latin, Salix. It was once common for every farm or at least townland, to have a ‘sally garden’, where the willow for basketry was managed.

Dandelions

Another important plant for pollinators now is the dandelion, which towards the end of the month, is suddenly carpeting the verges and grassy patches with their fuzzy looking yellow flowers. Interestingly the dandelion is asexual, and doesn’t need pollinators at all, but in some generous quirk of nature, produces bountiful nectar anyway, giving early pollinators an much needed food source. So if they are appearing in your lawn, wait a while before giving them the chop!

First visiting summer migrants to return…

Over the last few weeks the early morning dawn chorus has been building, with more songs joining everyday. Towards the end of the month I noticed the loudest was a new refrain and when I checked with my Merlin app5, saw that it was the Chiffchaff. This little warbler has migrated from North Africa, where it spent the winter, and has come back to Ireland to breed. Soon they will be joined by Willow Warblers, which look very similar, but have a much more melodious song. Our willow trees are full of the sound of their singing for most of the summer, until they flying off again for their winter holiday. I will be listening and looking out over the next few weeks for more of these summer migrant birds, that will be joining us very soon.

Lastly…

If you what some more information about willow trees in Ireland, or the other alternatives for the shamrock plants, you may find these interesting:

This podcast episode takes a closer look at the humble willow, talking about the importance of willow for wildlife, how it features in Irish folk songs and the importance for people over the centuries.

Find out more about the difference plants that are called ‘shamrock’ and a little more about the symbolism and uses of the plants.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about what I have seen here in Ireland during March. I’d love to know what you have seen in your part of the world…

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Whichever jacket or coat I put on, there is certain to be some sort of treasure hiding in one of the pockets. Nothing that would be worth anything to anyone else, but definitely precious to me. A small irregular nugget of buffed sea glass, a pebble with a lacy pattern, an interesting feather or pretty shell. Add this to the treasures the children give me to ‘look after’; mermaid’s purses, small sticks, seed pods or a pine cone, and my pockets are usually bursting at the end of a walk.

We have little collections of these things around the house, in jars and dishes, on my desk, in the ‘nature corner’1, and a pile of things left by the front door. I find these simple things very reassuring; something small but that still connects us to the natural landscape. The pebbles, particularly, are very grounding, like a little smooth, cool piece of the past fitting into ours hands.

They are also wonderful things to sketch, either on their own, or in little collections. On warmer days, I love sketching shoreline treasures on the beach. First the gentle stroll, eyes down, looking for something interesting, and then gathering and arranging them to create a pleasing sketchbook page. Often the cast shadows can create their own beautiful shapes, so it is worth sketching out the line of the shadows in case the sun disappears (like for the crab I painted below). If there isn’t time to paint on location, I often take a few photos2 and finish at my desk.

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In the case of pebbles, the beautiful colours and textures of the stone can be enough inspiration, without having to slavishly recreate them. I recently posted a sketchbook page of pebbles inspired by a winter beach walk, where I had used them to practice mixing neutrals. The pebbles got a lot of love (thank you!), and I had lots of comments asking about the watercolour mixes I used. So I have created a little mixing guide, which you can download, as a reference if you are interested. You could follow these mixes yourself, or it might be a good starting point to mix up some pebble-neutrals of your own.

Pebble Mixing

23.9MB ∙ PDF file

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A free mixing guide to neutrals - perfect for pebbles

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One of my favourite colours for including in a neutral stone mix is Potter’s Pink. It isn’t a very strong pigment, but it has beautiful granulating properties, which help to give a lovely natural stone effect. It is also useful to add a ‘glow’ to sand, like in the sketch below. Another useful granulating colour is Cerulean Blue, which I often use if I want a softer grey. There are so many combinations and colours to play with, and painting pebbles with the colours means you have something much more interesting at the end, rather than just some swatches.

I hope these mixing ideas inspire you to try a little pebble painting yourself (or some of your other nature finds). I’d love to know if you find it useful. (And if you do, please pass this on to someone else who might like it.

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Imbolc, the start of Spring

The beginning of February marks the start of Spring here in Ireland, with the ancient festival of Imbolc1, and on the 1st February, St Brigid’s Day. Imbolc is the astronomical midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, and has been celebrated since ancient times as the point the light starts to returns and the long winter days are finally over. In pagan Ireland this time of year was connected with the goddess Brigid, the goddess of healing, fertility and poetry. Today the goddess has become blurred with St Brigid, who is credited with the founding a monastery in Kildare in the 5th century. Legend has it, she asked the King of Leinster for land to build her church, and he offered her as much ground as her cloak would cover. She agreed, and four of her followers stretched out her cloak until it miraculously covered a vast area of land, easily enough for the church.

Usually February is anything but spring-like, but this year the month starts off promisingly, with sunshine and mild temperatures. The Friday before St Brigid’s Day I was up early, squelching down through a field looking for rushes that the children could take into school. These rushes2 are used to make traditional St Brigid crosses. Luckily around where we live, they are not hard to find, growing abundantly in the damp field edges. So I cut a few bundles of the the long, smooth green stems, and tie them up, ready for the children to take in with them. Traditionally the crosses were hung in the home to protect the house for the year ahead. So now we make them each year and keep them on the mantelpiece (I have been told you are meant to burn the previous years cross on the fire, but the children never can bear to, so we have a little stock pile of them in our nature corner, maybe adding extra protection?!).

Unfortunately the first, glorious day of spring didn’t last, and the rest of the month has been very wet and windy. Although, given the many extreme weather events around the globe this month, I feel grateful that it has just been wet for us.

Irish Rainforests

Of course, rain is nothing unusual on the west coast of Ireland, and in fact there is so much precipitation it creates conditions for temperate rainforests to thrive. Long ago, before humans had begun cutting the trees down, oceanic forests are thought to have stretched all along the wet west coast of Ireland. Now only tiny pockets remain; with ancient, native trees that are covered in moss, lichens and ferns, in an atmosphere that is permanently damp. Even globally, it is a very rare type of woodland, found in widely scattered areas that have high oceanicity3.

Clearly the crucial ingredient in this type of woodland is rain; over 200cm (78inches) annually, and also frequency; falling on more than 200 days a year. We have a small weather station on our garage roof, which last year recorded 259cm (101inches) of rain, falling on 228 days - so we qualify! Unfortunately we are not actually surrounded by lush forests, but mostly by green farm fields and hedges. However where there are pockets of woodland, they definitely have the rainforest feel, with the trunks and branches of the trees covered in moss, lichens, liverworts and ferns. These epiphytes4 are another indicator of a temperate rainforest, and some of the oldest trees in the woods near me are cloaked in them, which combined with the moss, looks like soft, fuzzy sleeves. They make an interesting subject to sketch, although all that fluffy moss is a bit of a challenge.

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Lapwings on the mudflats

Away from the trees, there are still plenty of over-wintering birds on the tidal estuary and shoreline, probing the mud, and feeding up before they start to leave again in March.

My bird of the month has definitely got to be the Lapwing, with flocks of them flying past as I drive along the river mouth that flows out to the sea. They are such characterful waders, black and white at first glance, but on closer inspection you notice the beautiful range of colours in their plumage. And not to mention their dapper cap, complete with an elegant plume of feathers, looking like a race-day fascinator. Their name in Irish is Pilibín5, meaning ‘little Philip’, thought to make reference to Philip II of Spain who always wore a feather in his cap. They are also known as the green plover, or peewit, which reflects the strange, other worldly sound of their call (listen to this short recording to hear their unusual calls). I think they sound like little robots, bleeping and whistling. Their calls are at a height during the breeding season when the males swoop and dive, doing mid-air acrobatics, to show off their prowess to the females. This isn’t the only performance these flamboyant birds make either. Once on the nest, protecting their eggs or chicks, the parents will often feign an injured wing, drawing the predator’s attention away from their young. Perhaps this is why the collective term for lapwing is a ‘deceit’.

A host of golden… flowers

Even though the weather this February has been mostly wet and grey, towards the end of the month, bright yellow flowers have been popping up everywhere. Cheery daffodils along our driveway and in drifts in the local park, lesser celandine opening their shiny flowers on the verges, primroses, dandelions, and gorse (also called furze here). Before we moved to Ireland, I hadn’t come across this spiky, evergreen bush, very much. But now, it is definitely the flower I notice most in February, when the hedgerows and abandoned fields light up with the bright yellow flowers. It actually is in flower almost all year round, but right now it is giving us the best display. If you dare to put your nose close enough to smell the pea-shaped flowers, they smell faintly of coconut.

I know in some parts of the world gorse has been introduced and is considered an invasive species. All those flowers produce thousands of seed pods, which on hot days in the summer I can hear popping, as they explode out tens of thousands of seeds. I find the little, tough, sharp seedlings all over the place. The high oil content of the leaves means that, even in our ‘rainforest’ climate, it can pose a serious fire risk during dry spells.

Leverets

My favourite nature spot this month has been a cute little leveret we have seen a few times on our driveway. It is always a delight to see a hare, and sometimes we see the adults on the lawn or darting down the drive. Irish hares have been here since the last Ice Age and are an unique subspecies, more closely related to mountain hares of Europe, than the brown hares in the UK (which were actually introduced by the Romans). Our hares have shorter ears and a much paler belly than the brown hares, and personally I think they are cuter looking, with a less wild-eyed look about them.

The leverets we have seen could well be newly weened and starting the fend for themselves, as leverets are born fully furred, with their eyes open, and are weened at about 21 days. Although it might seem early, Irish hares6 breed all year round, so it is not uncommon to see leverets at this time of year. Hopefully they will stick around and we’ll get to see more of them.

Lastly…

If you want to deep dive into Irish Rainforests or know more about Lapwing, you may find these interesting:

An Irish Atlantic Rainforest is a fascinating book by Eoghan Daltun about his personal journey on buying a 73 acre woodland in the south west of Ireland. A beautiful version full of his photography has also recently been published.

This lovely podcast gives more information on lapwing in Ireland, weaving in folk stories, music and conversations with people driven to protecting them.

I hope you enjoyed reading about what I have seen here in Ireland, I’d love to know what you have seen in your part of the world…

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Even though it is springtime here in Ireland (according to the traditional calendar), and the days are feeling milder, with spring flowers appearing here and there, the trees are still looking bare. It will be a few months before they are all fully in leaf. But this brings some interesting sketching opportunities…

On a blustery mid-February day, I take the uneven stone steps from our lawn, leading me down to the edge of one of the old fields. Here we have let things go wild, just keeping pathways clear enough to walk through. I squelch along on the wet, rough grass, passing the rusty fronds of bracken, and listening to the wind rustle through the dried moor grass and rushes. Soon I come to a tumble-down dry stone wall, covered in moss, ivy, ferns. This marks part of an old enclosure, maybe a garden or vegetable plot, with the remains of a tiny traditional Irish farm labourer’s cabin1 behind. The cabin was made of the same stone as the enclosure walls, dug from the land, and the roof would probably have been turf. It too is a jumble of mossy stones now. But I’ve come to sketch one of the wonderfully gnarled old hazel trees that grows here. Their catkins are dangling down like tassels, and their oldest branches stretch out like long, ancient limbs. New growth is rod straight, looking at odds with the mossy old branches. Hazel is an excellent tree for coppicing, and if managed properly, will provide a continual source of straight poles for fencing, light construction, and in the past, fish traps2. Perhaps that is why the trees are here? Planted by whoever lived in the cabin to provide them with wood and nuts. Today they are home to a small flock of wood pigeon that like to roost in the branches. I startle them as I walk into the enclosure and they all fly off with noisy flapping. I sit for a while sketching the hazel, listening to the wind blowing around me, before my hands get too cold, and I venture back inside to the warmth to finish my sketch.

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Winter is a great time to look at trees and really see their true forms. With many of them casting off their leaves, we can now appreciate the shapes of the trucks, branches and twigs underneath. I think trees make great subjects for sketch practice; they are pretty ubiquitous (even in the most urban of areas you will find them), they stay still (unlike a lot of wildlife) and they are big enough that you don’t even need to get too close, so in winter can be sketched from inside (either home/café/car). And because of the first two reasons, they are also easy to take a quick photo of, to use as a reference later.

If you live somewhere that gets snow during the winter, then the stark bare branches laden with white make beautiful sketch subjects. The west coast of Ireland is usually too mild for heavy snow, but since we have lived here, we have been treated a few times. Once in November 2024 we woke up to a thick blanket, covering everything with a good few inches. The goat willow3 trees in our little patch of woodland were still in leaf, so supported more snow than the bare branches would have done otherwise. The weight of the snow was too much, and we had a few casualties, with some big branches cracking and splitting away from the trees. But willows are very resilient, and will continue to grow, even if part of the tree has split away. Over a year on, with the branches pruned back, they are still going strong.

If you want inspiration for beautiful winter tree paintings, have a look at the work of Shari Blaukoff. If you don’t already know her work, she is a master of winter landscape painting.

While it may seem like the trees are dormant right now, take a closer look and you’ll find they are already gearing up for spring (depending where you are in the world). Here in Ireland, catkins are forming on the hazel and alders, and the leaf buds on the cherries are already quite developed. I pruned a few twigs off my own trees, and brought them inside so I could get good look while I sketched them. As the seasons go by, I will sketch these again and share how they develop over the year.

What’s happening with trees in your part of the world, are they covered with snow, or starting to wake up? I’d love to know.

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The start of the new year always feels like a slow time to me. In the northern hemisphere, the days are short, the weather often bleak, and nature is still (mostly) sleeping. Waiting through January for the daylight hours and temperature to increase, signals for growth and more activity. January feels like a good time to slow down, focus a little more on ourselves, and not feel too much pressure to make lists, or set goals.

Personally, I like the idea hunkering down through January, focusing on indoor jobs and tasks and taking thing slowly. This month I’ve been catching up on some of the online art courses I have accumulated, which gives the satisfaction of creating when it is hard to get outside for sketching.

But if the weather permits, it is nice to wrap up and get out. This month the day light hours are lengthening; by 1 hour and 14 mins from the beginning to the end of the month where I live1. The temperates are also increasing, and combined with an already mild winter, means than the first wildflowers are appearing. I spotted lesser celandine blooming on the 26th December and by the start of January noticed great clumps on the verges. There is plenty of gorse adding a splash of yellow, and in the garden the hellebores are nodding their pretty purple heads. I’d love to hear what you have seen in your part of the world.

The mild weather has also encouraged the frogs, who I can hear croaking from our pond early in the mornings. By the beginning of the second week of the month there were two mounds of frogspawn sitting like big blobs of jelly at the edge of the pond. The blobs increased as the month went on. Our damp and untidy garden gives plenty of places for frogs to live, and I often find one or two if I’m tidying up throughout the year. A female frogs lays about 2,000 eggs a season, so that is a lot of spawn when you have a strong frog population. Which is needed, as while about 95% of the eggs will hatch, only 1-5% of tadpoles will reach adulthood, and then only a handful will make it sexual maturity (which takes 3 years). Did you know a frog can live for 8 years?2

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There were some dry, crisp days at the beginning of the month, and one day we took a family walk in the local forest park at Glanteenassig. Sadly Ireland is lacking in woodland and forest, with one of the lowest coverages in Europe at around just 11%, compared with an average of 37%. Like many ‘forests’ here, this is managed by Coillte (the state forestry company) and is actually an old Sitka plantation from the 1950s. Having said that, I have noticed large areas that have been replanted with native trees, which gives hope for the future.

The setting at Glanteenassig (meaning valley of the waterfalls) is beautiful, with three lakes and a horseshoe of mountains all around. This time we heard, and briefly saw, lots of goldcrest flitting amongst the trees and a robin who seem to follow us around on our walk. But under the coniferous canopy, there is little signs of life, just a thick layer of fallen needles, with very little in the way of under-planting. Not much to support wildlife here.

It was a different story on another woodland walk a week later, this time in Ballyseedy Woods just outside my nearest town, Tralee. This is a broadleaf, ancient woodland, with a good mix of native trees. The feeling in this type of woodland couldn’t be more different from the coniferous plantation. Even though it is January, the woodland floor is cloaked in green; with ferns, brambles, sedges, ivy, and the leaves of wild garlic and bluebells starting to poke up through the leaf litter. All around birds fly through the tangled branches, or hop along mossy fallen logs. I saw blackbirds, wrens, long-tailed tits, coal tits, magpies, goldfinch, and heard many more. Sometimes in this wood we see red squirrels, but not this time. We will come back again in the spring, when the wild garlic is out, and see what else we can find.

Down on the shoreline, a brisk January walk at low tide is the ideal opportunity to see some of the three-quarters of a million water birds that migrate to Ireland during the winter. Over 50 species come here, many from the Arctic regions, to feed during our mild winters. These include many types of waders, ducks, geese and swans. On my coastal walk this month I have seen; Brent geese, bar-tailed godwits, wigeon, ringed plovers, little egret, oystercatchers and curlew to name a few. The bar-tailed godwits have particularly taken my sketching fancy this month. With their long legs and bill, they resemble a curlew, but they are smaller and the godwit has a straighter bill, curving up, every so slightly, at the end. As these are winter visitors for us in Ireland, I have only ever seen them in their grey and brown plumage, but in summer the males display a striking orange-red underside. This month I have enjoyed watching groups of them probing with their long bills into the soft sand at the water’s edge.

I feel grateful to see these birds, as nationally there has been a huge decline in over wintering water birds in Ireland, down from 1.5 millions in the 1990’s to 750,000 now3. Bar-tail godwits have faired better than most, with national numbers near level4, but according to the Irish Wetland Bird Survey, the numbers are down over 70% for survey sites near me at Tralee and Castlegregory. Why they are down so much here, I don’t know, but I hope their numbers will increase again.

My last nature spot to report, was a badger on our wildlife camera. We have never seen one before, so we were very excited, especially as the camera had gone crazy and taken thousands of photos of nothing! I wonder if it was just passing through, or if there is a sett somewhere nearby?

What have you seen this month in your part of the world? I’d love to know…

Lastly…

Some things that have inspired me this month:

I got An Irish Nature Year by Jane Powers a few years ago and I have re-read it every year. Broken down into an entry for every day of the year, it gives wonderful facts about all aspects of nature in Ireland. A perfect way to start each day.

This year I have just discovered the As the Seasons Turns podcast presented by Lia Leendertz, which is a lovely, gentle ode to the seasons. I have also bought Lia’s Almanac, which sit very well along side the podcast, and is a month-by-month guide to the changing seasons. Lia is also here on Substack.

I’m Louisa and I live in County Kerry on the west coast of Ireland.

I love all things to do with nature, and I also love sketching, which I find the perfect way to slow down and really take notice of the world around me. Drawing outside in nature, is a wonderful antidote to the buzz of a busy life and a way to unplug for a few hours, while appreciating the little things around us.

Sketching the Seasons is a space to share my observations throughout the year, following the gentle rhythms of the seasons. I will share sketches of wildlife I have seen and heard, the new wildflowers I spot each month, interesting finds from the seashore and other small things I have noticed. Because sketching is a big part of this Substack, I will also let you what materials I’m using from time to time too.

It would be wonderful to hear about what you see (and maybe sketch) where you live.