Friday, May 16, 2014

Some recent work

 I was back down watching the reedlings twice this week and have been a little perplexed by their behaviour.  I think this is the adult female from the 2nd nest, and the only time I saw her in the last 2 visits she was carrying reed heads away from the original nest site being chased by a few males.
After watching an adult male fly circuits around the first nest and calling for 5 minutes last sunday, I am almost sure I had a juv flutter across a channel after the male away from the nest. After that I only saw an adult briefly in the area. There was similarly little activety by the second nest, but adults were returning to particular areas in the reed bed and I hoped there were chicks hidden in there somewhere. On wednesday the adults were quite spread out and I never had even a sniff of a juv, hopefully tomorrow will give a little clarity.

 A few sketches of adult males from wednesday, I had a few really good views of males but they seemed very skittish and never settled for long.


 I have had a bit of time to work on some paintings this week and drew up a few plans and layouts. Hopefully I will have some more time soon to finish them off.

These grasshopper warblers were done up from sketches and photographs of several I saw well in Donegal last week. Locustella warblers are usually really shy and difficult to get good views of, but fresh migrants will often sing right in the open and can be quite approachable.

2 comments:

  1. Your bird drawings are among the most beautiful I have ever seen. You convey your thorough knowledge of the bird's world with the most skilled and delicate mastering of sketches and watercolor. Bravo!

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  2. I agree with @oldhorseman. The paintings are beautiful. I can't remember another time where I really looked at someone's work in amazement.

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