Sparrows on the Shed
This photograph looks rather like a scree-slope on a Lakeland fell but in fact each of these slate-like fragments is less than a millimetre across, smaller than the commas on this page. It’s a piece...
View ArticleRipple Marks
THE REAR WINDOW of our apartment on Glassford Street, Glasgow, where we stayed last weekend, looked out over a yard. The wall of the adjoining building was constructed of rough-hewn stone and I noticed...
View ArticleTrummelbach Falls
WE WERE heading elsewhere but the view of the Lauterbrunnen valley – the valley of 72 waterfalls – as we descend on the funicular railway proves irresistible. After so much travelling yesterday, we’re...
View ArticleThe Top of Europe
THE DAY STARTS as our clearest yet, so we head up the hill towards Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe. After we change trains at Kleine Scheidegg the railway ascends via a tunnel...
View ArticleFossil Shells
22°C, 5.50 pm. THESE PIECES of sandstone at the corner of the pond provide access to the water for birds and perhaps some cover for newts and frogs. They also help disguise the edge of the black...
View ArticleTree Ferns
I DREW this group of tree ferns from plants in the fern house at Kew Gardens. It was a frosty winter weekend and the prospect of drawing in the shelter of a glasshouse appealed to me. Unfortunately...
View ArticleLakeland Rock
Fragment of a Lakeland rock (I'm not sure exactly where I picked this up now!) I REMEMBER this rock near the lakeside at Bowness from a childhood holiday in the Lake District. It’s been smoothed and...
View ArticleMerlin and the Kumquat
MUCH OF the bedrock that I’ve seen in rocks on the shore or in roadside cuttings is like this; it’s full of fragments of limestone, strongly bound in a cement of pulverised and powdered rock. The 1 to...
View ArticleBoulder
THIS MUCH-INITIALLED gritstone boulder sits on top of the Cow at the Cow and Calf Rocks above Ilkley. To get this view I had to perch on another boulder, which wasn’t comfortable enough to encourage me...
View ArticleBlackthorn Blossom
It’s been a good year for blossom. The splash of blackthorn at the edge of the wood has lasted well and is still looking at its best. Most daffodils are looking seedy, crocuses have vanished and as I...
View ArticleCoxley Quarry
The heavily jointed and irregularly bedded sandstone always looked untrustworthy and a rockfall occurred some twenty-five or thirty years ago. Moss, fern and ash have colonised the jumble of boulders....
View ArticleThe Stones of Ossett
Like most towns, Ossett has developed in part because of the underlying rocks. The winding gear of a coal mine appears on the town’s coat of arms, reproduced on the paving stones of the precinct...
View ArticleIronstone Concretion
Like a ripple on a pond or a blot on a page ironstone concretions spread out across the layers of sandstone in Coxley Quarry so I guess that they must have formed after the sandbanks were laid down,...
View ArticleRipples in Time
I’d never noticed this fossil ripple mark in a sandstone block on the raised bed until I noticed the afternoon sun shining on it. The block is nearly a foot across. It’s the sort of feature that gets...
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