A week (19th-26th sept) on Bardsey with Kim Atkinson & Darren Woodhead as part of the BTO/SWLA flight lines project, sketching activities around the bird observatory. Very low key bird wise which may have been for the best… forcing us to look more at the surroundings and the people at work. Pretty low numbers of...
arctic terns shetland
Towards the end of our time on Shetland we got 2 days of sun. Great to have pitched up at a bay where there was an arctic tern colony. They were sitting on young chicks and eggs both down on the beach and in the boulder field above. One of the great things from the...
otters – shetland
We had 2 days with good viewings of otters. The first looking for them on the falling tide on Fetlar. My sketching falling apart with the excitement of seeing them. There is a shape shifting aspect to the otter, changing personality rapidly. So the initial struggle to hang a four legged creature on the page...
gannets – bass rock
Back from 3 weeks in Scotland. First the ‘John Busby seabird drawing course’, the 25th year it has run and the first one without John. I think he would have been happy to look down on us. It felt like the group of ‘students’ gelled quickly and we four ‘tutors’ were more actively leading activities…...
Wallasea Island RSPB/SWLA project – short-eared owl printing
More owl printing, jumping up in size for this one.
short-eared owl monoprinting
Unusual day where I managed to persist with the same ingredients for 3 monoprints… usually ink misbehaves, or the press does something untoward…. but today free to just try different things. Using small rollers, brushing and playing with the balance of the three colours. Somehow replicating the freedom that I might have when scribbling in...
Wallasea Island RSPB/SWLA project
Not long back from Wallasea Island RSPB/SWLA project. Earth dug out from under London has been shipped to the Essex coast not far from Southend. It is being used to raise the level of the ‘island’ A huge area raised by between 3 and 5 metres. Sculpted to create lagoons, pans, ditches etc this should provide a...
mini meadow 2014 – other insects
I’ve already covered the bumblebees in separate post Butterflies common blue butterfly – first seen on 27th may feeding on the cut-leaved cranesbill. (see the yellow rattle post for more about common blues) meadow brown on rattle pods – ink pen – A6 sketchbook Meadow brown & Ringlet – didn’t keep much record of numbers...
mini meadow 2014 – birds
Highlight of the year birdwise was this cuckoo on 1st may. Seemed extraordinary… in continuous rain I kept thinking I could hear cuckoo from the studio, but couldn’t believe it… thought it might be someone playing around with speakers. Took a very long time to track it down to the top of beech tree, well...
mini meadow 2014 – bumblebees
31 Mar 2014 buying the bee id app. By NatureGuides Ltd. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/bumblebees-britain-ireland/id657077156?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D8 having seen boldly marked bumblebee this morning. Seems like it is Bombus hypnorum the tree bumblebee. One of the 6 commonest spp. Probably a queen… very black abdomen with white tip… ginger thorax the most striking feature. Following on from this I started...
