Monday 4 May 2009

A wild Saturday night

Now that the weather is getting better (she said while a cold wind blew outside her window) I have started my night rambles in the countryside. I go out at around dusk and can see many of the mammals that stay out of sight during the day. Saturday was my first of the season and, boy, was it a doozy. To begin with a fox stalked past me, totally oblivious to my presence. Unfortunately it disturbed a couple of roe deer which shot off across the field - bouncing along and barking a rebuke to the fox. On the other side of the road another roe deer was eating the new growth from the young trees, silhouetted against the darkening sky, it's rather large ears rotating once in a while to listen. I stood for a while watching it and did a little sketch with indian ink pens and blue watercolour tinted paper.


As I turned to go back I noticed a hedgehog just at my feet. I shone the torch on it and it turned to look at me with its beady little eye. I have not seen hedgehogs in the area for years so it was even more exciting to see this one wandering around. As hedgehogs are pretty slow and quite accommodating I managed a couple of pencil sketches.


That is the beauty of this time of year. When I go out I never know what I am going to see. However, over the last year it seems to me that the wildlife has become richer and more diverse. Hopefully that will be a good thing for the area and we won't have to worry about people shouting about the 'damage' the wildlife is doing to the farmland.

2 comments:

Lorraine said...

I love your drawings..it must be lovely to live in such a beautiful place surrounded by nature. Thanks for the comments on my blog

Seth said...

LOVE the silhouette. And you always seem to capture the essence of all the animals you draw. Definitely the sign of a true animal lover!