A project that celebrates the long-term wildlife research that I have been privileged to take part in as a volunteer over the last four decades and which honours the friendship, collaboration and generosity of all the people working together in a sprit of enquiry and intellectual exchange. It will reflect on the friendships, and the moments of fellowship built over many years of shared encounters with wildlife and wild places.
Under The Woodcock Moon 97 x 79cm
watercolour and acrylic on paper
Based on 15 years of studying birds at night as they feed on pasture and stubble fields. In that time I have trapped, marked, measured and released hundreds of woodcock under licence. Early in my career I learned from experts and now I train other bird ringers how to safely catch and study the birds. I have closely studied the birds' behaviour and learned how to determine their age and sex from extensive work of many other researchers- both amateur and professional. My birds have been recovered in Latvia and Russia and recently my observations on woodcock behaviour were published in an ornithological journal- and of course the paper relied on the advice, comments and field observations of many other researchers.
The Measure Of The Long Watch
80 x 60cm watercolour & acrylic on paper
The painting celebrates the collaborative projects I have done in the Tay reedbeds to develop a novel playback survey that is now the international standard to census the species - and other, similar birds too. I have worked with others to discover the territory sizes, breeding behaviour and best management of the reedbeds for the species -now adopted as standard, reedbed management plans. Additionally, a paper I wrote from y own observations was published describing the most reliable age and sex characteristics. Over 8 years I set up my own project to discover that, contrary to previous understanding, some of our breeding birds migrate to Ireland for the winter and breeding birds from the continent winter here as part of a regular, planned migration.
