Leaving Winter Behind - January and Febrary Pages

Leaving Winter Behind - January and February Pages 2026

the remaining unshared pages from my January and February sketchbook

We’re rapidly accelerating away from winter, so I’d better share the unshared pages from my sketchbook before it feels uncouth to remind us of bare branches and cold earth. Soon we will be BASKING in green and yellow and pink and birdsong and sunshine. I’ve got all a-wonky in my sketchbook sharing – I did December and half of January together, then a set of snowdrop pages seperately, and these poor pages have been forgotten. So here we are, a dump of missed pages.

1 – 5

Oaks and Badgers!

I’ve become DELIGHTED AND INTRIGUED by a patch… area?… what *is* the collective term for a group of oak trees?… a copse, perhaps, of huge old oaks here at Drygrange. I can give exact locations for anyone local. There’s maybe 9 or so. They are magnificent and I like sitting with them. And underneath them is an enormous and very active looking badger sett. It is quite the architecture, with muddy bankings, paths, slopes down to deep holes. I spent a very peaceful 30 minutes one day pottering around the little badger paths and watching deer and looking. Funny to think of the badgers asleep in there while I sit with my cup of tea and my sketchbook and my oaks.

5, 6

Winter colours, golds and browns and greens.

7, 8 , 9

Ducks are great, aren’t they, especially against a slate-grey, partially frozen loch. Colour, movement, QUACKING, squabbling. Trix & I love feeding them at Tweedbank pond and at the loch at the Hirsel. We coincided with a knowledgeable couple in the bird hide at the Hirsel who pointed out a mandarin, gadwall and teal.