Field Notes: 02
Happy Friday. And a warm welcome to those of you who have joined me here after finding my work through Seeds of Hope at Shibden over the weekend, or after hearing about me from the lovely Hannah Nunn. Thanks for sharing my work, Hannah!
It was another hot week last week, wasn’t it? Feeling a bit tired, uninspired and fed up of being indoors, I set off up the hill on my bike to the best recalibration spot in the Calder Valley: Midgley res. After hauling my bike over a few stiles, I arrived hot and sweaty and dumped my rucksack at the base of that Rowan tree, which was heavily laden with red berries.
And I guess that’s where Field Notes: 02 began!
Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)
After cooling down with a peaceful swim, I sat on the wall and sketched as I dried off. I liked the wind turbines and the patchwork drystone walls on the hill in the distance, framed by the tree’s branches spreading like a hand, fingers splayed.
After that day, I kept noticing Rowan’s everywhere I walked, dripping with red clusters of fruit. I was curious why the birds weren’t eating them.
So I went to investigate in a Nature Notebook session…
Nature Notebook spread: Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)
Rowan is also known as Mountain Ash, a name I remember hearing for the first time from my ex-colleague, Martin. He exclaimed it as we came across a little sapling in the uplands of North Yorkshire during my first fieldwork probing peat depths for the England Peat Map project.
Indeed, Rowan grows in upland areas, rocky hillsides and mountains; it’s a pioneer species, and the “ash” part of its nickname comes from its resemblance of its leaves to those of the Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior). But instead of being oppositely arranged on the twigs, they are alternate.
They have compound leaves, meaning each leaf splits from one bud into many smaller leaflets, in this case usually 11-15 of them with toothed edges. And the berries… They aren’t getting eaten yet because they’re not ready! They are still bitter and sour due to their parasorbic acid content, which, when exposed to frost and freezing temperatures, breaks down into the much more easily digestible sorbic acid. So, the Rowan provides a much-needed food source for many birds and little mammals later in the season. Cool!
Hey Nature Updates
Notes from Seeds of Hope at Shibden
It was a wonderful weekend at Shibden Park in Halifax at the Seeds of Hope community gardening festival as part of Stage at the Lake. I can’t describe how magical it was to see the 10 show gardens come to life. I had illustrated them all for the activity trail booklet: from sketches of floor plans and pictures of planters I collected back in May when I visited all the gardeners to hear their ideas. It was just wonderful to see The Outback’s community kitchen shed filled with veggies, St Augustine’s bike basket brimming with flowers, and Incredible Edible’s UFO!
Just as wonderful, was watching children running around filling in activities and working towards their “garden explorer” badge in the booklet. It was a privilege to work with the Seeds of Hope team on this project that was so aligned with Hey Nature; a big thanks to the CultureDale team for choosing my proposal. Congratulations to all the amazing community groups and volunteers for their help making Seeds of Hope happen.
If you’d like to find out more and get a better look at the gardens, watch this reel I made here and have a read of these articles by the BBC and the good old Halifax Courier.
Notes from Seeds of Hope at Shibden
I’ve been trying to reorganise myself after finishing that big project, check my compass and figure out the path towards where to next.
After selling some of my work at Hebden Open Studios, I’ve started an online Etsy shop and I am slowly creating some new work to go here and into local shops and galleries. I’d love it if you’d like to have a browse and support me as I develop Hey Nature. A percentage of all sales will go towards materials for “Hey Nature Education”, running workshops, and creating educational resources to help people connect with the natural world through art, ecology and exploration. Such as…
I’ve been dreaming up a Hey Nature Club, after really enjoying facilitating my Nature Notebooking workshops in July and feeling like it would be worthwhile to establish a group for us to grow together. The updates are: I’d like to start with a 6-week course for “youth naturalists” on Tuesday evenings after school starting mid-September. Each session would start with a walk to explore different habitats or organisms and finish with a Nature Notebook sesh doing naturalist-style field notes of our ecological investigations. We can use my reference books, watercolours and other creative materials. Sounds fun, right? Just need to get a move on and decide where to run it from…
I’d really like to run an adult group too, to explore the landscapes of Calderdale together, reconnect with our curiosity and creativity, and reflect on how slowing down to notice Nature can help us find our ✨thing✨.
I’m thinking alternate Saturdays and was wondering about leading walks to my favourite spots in the valley for us to investigate different habitats - for example, the boggy moors from Heptonstall, a fungi loop from High Hurst, and of course, temperate rainforest at Hardcastle Crags. I could create educational resources for different habitats in Calderdale (yes please!). Each walk would finish with a Nature Notebook sesh, and maybe a coffee and a cake at a local café en route (?). Still a few things to figure out for this too, but hopefully we are on the way…
I’ll have an interview for my grant application through CFFC for some resources to help me with developing the club and other Hey Nature adventures next week. And I’ve been accepted onto the King’s Trust Enterprise programme. So fingers crossed we are on the way to getting some support and guidance to really start going in the right direction. It’s encouraging to think how far I’ve come already!
What do you reckon? What would you like to see from Hey Nature?
Do feel free to drop me a line if you’ve got any comments or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you! And follow my Instagram to follow my journey. Thank you for being here 💚
