An icy afternoon in Sydenham Hill Woods, page 11

Gardener's hut Soho Square, Graphic novel pages 9 & 10

The gardener's hut in Soho Square today, it was a beautiful day with no clouds at all but very cold and oppressively crowded everywhere. In an episode of the excellently hilarious Toast of London, Toast is summoned to a fencing match inside the hut, when he is inside the hut it's implausibly huge! I discovered that in the mid eighteenth century a very famous fencing master, Domenico Angelo, really did live in a house in Soho Square, so there is some satisfying logic to the association....

Graphic novel project, pages 9 & 10...

New Tate Modern extension + page 8

I went to the Tate Modern today to see the Sigmar Polke and the aftermath of war exhibition, "Conflict, Tme, Photography" lots of interesting questions about memory and time in both, though Polke seemed to have a more Significant response to the question of propaganda, I also really liked his trippy agaric pictures, mixing sci fi with Alice in Wonderland and more Burroughesque themes...the extension is coming along, it at least has a more interesting shape then some of the rushed towers going up in the area. 

New graphic novel pages 5, 6 & 7

 

These are pages 5, 6 and 7.at the moment

Little Owl part 4, more Croydon Alps

At 16:16 the reliable Little Owl flew from the usual copse onto the open ground then up to a high plain tree as I have seen him do four times now, this time I also heard him make a striking "put, put , put" call, quite aggressive sounding , Peter also heard this and we wondered if it was a contact call, and if, therefore, there are two owls! It was very cold and not hard to imagine some snow coming into Streatham soon, I hope the Little Owl is hardy. I read they can use the same spot for upto 25 years.

Below, the ancient woods at the top of the common tonight, not where I've seen owls, but others have heard tawnys there over the years.

Below, page 4

The view over Covington Way towards Croydon, improved by an imaginary mountain range, subject of my recurring dreams.

Binary-coded sexagesimal wristwatch

Thank you Dave for my beautiful binary-coded sexagesimal wristwatch, I love it!

Its sexagesimal, (base 60),  "a numeral system with sixty as its base. It originated with the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC, it was passed down to the ancient Babylonians, and it is still used — in a modified form — for measuring time, angles, and geographic coordinates". Officially a nerd now!

Below, beginning of the Croydon Alps, rendered in Terragen 3D.

Graphic Novel project

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to complete a graphic novel, I've written the story but need to get my act together with the images etc. 

Pages 1, 2 & 3

Christmas Day 2014: Little Owl part 3

Thank you to Lesley for the beautiful fungi scarf!

A beautiful day on the common today, with time for both a walk and a run in the sun, lots of Bluetits, Coal tits and other usual suspects visible (and audible) today, including a flock of pigeons mobbing, or at least chasing, a crow and a sea gull it seemed, I can't remember seeing that before. My friend John told me he's heard owls in Biggin Woods, which would suggest a Tawny owl? I'm planning to check that out soon.

My sister gave me a beautiful Paper53 drawing stylus for Christmas, it's highly sensitive to pressure so you can do very fine or very thick lines more easily, it's beautiful! Thank you Esther! I will post drawings ASAP...

What a great way to end Christmas Day, I just saw the Little Owl on Streatham Common, he stayed still and in clear view for about 5 minutes, from16:15 onwards, the picture below is very grainy, but that is him on the branch.

Building site near Chancery Lane

This was a very busy building site I saw today, with some ancient looking arches underneath the modern layer of buildings. Below that, another ornate building, beside a bridge over the road.

Little Owl part 2

At 16:16 we saw the Little Owl on Streatham Common again, at first the silhouette looked so much like a cartoon owl I assumed it was a branch, but then it moved and swooped down onto the open ground before swooping up into the very high branches of a plain tree,  where he stayed for a few minutes, dogs and noisy children passed beneath the tree not knowing he was there. He then swooped down again and off. It was another very fine night like last night, though perhaps not as cloudless, he was more silhouetted then my Monday sighting, but great to now know some of his (or her) habits and launching posts. I'd like to hear this owl but so far it has been silent, quite a lot of alarm calls nearby from blackbirds, magpies and starlings, but not sure if the Little Owl would cause that, it was probably us, sneakng around in the dusk..

Clearly heard the drilling sound of a woodpecker at lunchtime yesterday while doing Tai Chi in the Rookery, Peter told me this is unusually late for such a call and that it was certainly a Great Spotted.

Tawny Owl spotted in Sydenham Hill Woods tonight

My friend Lesley and I had a fantastic view of a Tawny Owl tonight at 16:26 in Sydenham Hill Woods, we heard it hoot a few times before Lesley spotted him (the sound suggests a male) alighting on a large tree, about 15 feet up, and 15 or so feet away from us, the owl glared back at us then looked away, hooted again and got a reply in the darkness from another male, then flew off, apparently females don't do the 'twoo' or hoot sound we so clearly heard.  We couldn't have asked for a finer view. I was surprised by how large the owl was and how magnificent the markings were, this was a thrilling experience, what a week - first the Little owl on Streatham Common on Monday and now the Tawny on Friday. 

This week's experience of seeing owls shows how patience, research, timing and good luck can pay off, these are heartening experiences. It is so encouraging to know that these maginficent animals are able to live in the middle of a huge city like London. I am so glad we still have these precious wild spaces, I remember very clearly the threat to these woods in the 1970s when developers wanted to extend housing into them, thank god they didn't get their way. I'm wondering if the tree he was in might be a song post, a regular place for hunting and singing?

Camden Town this afternoon

The word 'tacky' doesn't quite cover Camden Town, qualitatively the place hasn't changed at all since I was a teenager and thought the crap on display here was worth an intricate journey across London. I take it all back about Croydon, at least Croydon has some variation, this place is wall-to-wall T shirts and fake motor-bike jackets, nothing at all for the over 12s ! But it was interesting to see it after the 18 or so years since my last visit.

Shoe shop, Clapham Junction

Something about this window full of shoes intrigued me the other day, it's a bit like a weird pet shop..

Little Owl On Streatham Common tonight

At last my patience has paid off and at dusk this evening (16:18) I clearly saw the Little Owl (Athene noctua) I've  been looking for all this week, he saw me too and glared down at me before flying off, swooping to the ground and back up into a tree by the South side of the common. He was a bit bigger than I expected, hunched in the tree as a very rounded shape, so glad he hasn't moved away, despite the magpies that have recently been using his favourite tree. Also heard the laugh of a Green Woodpecker earlier on, confirmed by someone highly knowledgeable, Peter Newmark from the Friends of Streatham Common, thanks to Andrew for telling me about the Little Owl.

Great spotted woodpecker

I saw three Great Spotted Woodpeckers ( Dendrocopos  major) today on Streatham Common, near the paddling pool at the top and in the woods, where a flash of bright red whizzed past me. I think one of them was female as she had a yellow tinged chest. They look really exotic to me, it's always a pleasure to see them. As described in guide books, one was either feasting on insects or fastidiously cleaning the area around it's nest, the RSPB says they have a 'distinctive, bouncing flight', this was also clearly on display today.

The mysterious 'Duke Night Store' Brockley Cross

The mysterious 'Duke Night Store' Brockley Cross, it reminds me of somewhere in an Edward Hopper painting, Even more so at night-time, when it must actually open. 

Croydon tram stop, Threepenny Bit Building

The diverse architecture of Croydon has always interested me, it's been a long term goal to do a book of drawings of the Victorian, Edwardian and 1960s-1970s buildings, including 'No. 1 Croydon' (a facile Internet search reveals it was also known as the '50p building' or 'NLA Tower') the distant round building in the drawing above. The building was completed in 1970 and is currently, again, according to a superficial degree of research, 'the 88th tallest in Britain' , woo!  Before decimalisation it was apparently referred to as the 'Threepenny Bit Building', this does actually ring bells, when we were children a trip to Croydon seemed like a jaunt to the Champs Élysées, oh how it has changed...many people observe a strange,  lightning-swift depression that sets in after a trip there, I've experienced it myself numerous times.

Winter bird walk, Sydenham Hill Woods

 The astute reader might notice that the image above is not of a bird, but a giant puffball, Calvatia gigantea. Daniel Greenwood led this very interesting walk, the birds were at first quite challenging to spot though highly audible, We did see a pair of Goldcrest as hoped, also some Nuthatches and lots of Bluetits, We clearly heard a Greater Spotted Woodpecker, which sounds like a squeaky toy, this apparently is its contact call. Below, this is meant to be a Goldcrest, they are one of the tiniest birds in Britain, weighing no more than a 5 p piece. 

We also heard the carousel like call of the Goldcrest, the tic tic ticking of a Wren, the jiggly Bluetit call, the dee dit, dee dit of the Nuthatch, (did someone say it's like a referee's 
whistle?) We heard the 'Seapy' sound of Redwing, which we also saw flying in a tight-knit group above our heads, Redwing also fly en masse at night and are  hunted by birds of prey. Daniel also said the glade in the wood is a good place to spot birds of prey, who are looking for mice etc, 

Other factoids: Apparently the oak tree by Belair house has a little owl in it. 
Tawny Owls are often seen at midday in Sydenham Hill Woods, they are the apex predator 
of the wood and may be emerging as a particular British species, as they do not migrate (if I understood this properly?). We also saw long tailed tits, Daniel said brother and sister ones 
often help rear the next generation, how gregarious and tribal they are!  The grand houses that were  once located in the woods had names like Sydenham Hoo and Beechcroft, in the image of the fallen trees below  you can see the remains of tennis courts behind them.

We saw quite a few fungi, the Hen of the Woods grows year round according to Daniel, I also saw some bonnets, the Miller, Candlesnuff fungus, which look like white antlers,and what I thought was jelly fungi, but is actually Hairy Curtain Crust, all looking pretty healthy, although the Hairy Curtain Crust on the fallen  tree branches were frozen. 

There was ice on the pond (see the image furthest below) the giant puff balls really were huge , at least as big as footballs, I never would have spotted them on my own as they were tucked away, hidden by ivy, not far from the Hen of the woods. 

The lovely Tooting Bec tube station and a strange painting

Croydon mystery sounds

Yes it could be the start of a great mystery, but I did hear the sounds and they were very much like fireworks, so, by the principal of Occam's razor, in which the most obvious line of reasoning should be adopted, I guess that's exactly what they were....it did sound like a gun battle or the blitz, but that's also what fireworks sound like, isn't it? What's more interesting is the widespread willingness to believe in a range of sinister alternatives, from terrorism to millitary experiments. 

Crystal Palace, me in a Christmas jumper

Above, Woodland Road, Crystal Palace, looking towards central London on a cold afternoon, below, me in a Christmas jumper! 

Below,  a shopper in Tescos cafe having a break and texting:

Below, Miki on a  telephone conference call