which way with Waxwings?

The unsolved question- whether to concentrate on the dumpy repeated forms in a flock of Waxwings, or take one and concentrate on the burst of colour and activity.

This one started as a thoughtful study of tone and form, but it didn't work without the flash of colour to tie it all up- so out with the juice gun and some festive lettering to finish off.  

krapwings

Still having a bit of a struggle..I had grand plans for a deeply-coloured and ultra-wet pic of three Lapwings on the high tide last weekend, but it went all insipid on me thus:

So in retaliation I grabbed a marker pen and laid them out on the yellow card from my trusty pack of file dividers, with few dabs of Tippex.  Better, but not there yet.

in front

This one's all about the overlap between the beast of a Great Black-backed Gull and the Redshank- I reversed along the harbour wall until I had the gull's beak just intersecting the Redshank's leg, like a little bit of crossed sword heraldry and (with colour) that should be the focus of the image.

One more on a recycled file divider:  I guess you can buy pre-coloured paper or card that will take paint properly, but I haven't found it yet. 

back to the wall

It's been a struggle painting-wise over the last few weeks. I've been determined to grab the moment when the low evening light at Mistley just laid a BT Godwit's shadow across a Pintail's chest down at Mistley Walls.  But the first over-engineered shot at it just started to look oily and overdone.

So I took the big stick stick to it:  garden hose and brush, but even with the muddy paint blasted off it, still just looked a bit dead.

Nothing for it but to try another tack, so this morning I took another run at it and here's the result, watercoloured onto a some blue card (a file divider filched from the office stationery cupboard).   Definitely better..

Pintail and Black-tailed Godwits, Mistley

over the wall

Not a birding trip as such, but a jaunt to Berlin to hang and to wander included a really fine bird moment: 250 Bean Geese heading southwest over the painted remnant of the Wall.  Loud enough and low enough for passing tourists on a "Trabant safari" to stop point and stare.

Also I managed to engineer a diversion into Linum, Brandenburg on the way into town from the airport, where a marvellous throng of Cranes came into roost at the appointed time.  Might have been 20,000?  30,000?  Here's a poor digigrab of a tiny part of the mighty host-  0 out of 10 for photoquality, but you get an idea of the shifting shapes of the flocks.

off the walls

The wonders of modern technology!

Down at Mistley Walls there's a van serving coffee with a choice of six types of coffee bean, and with scope and digicam you can see and capture the red-over-red flag on a Greenshank's leg at a far-off distance of...778 metres according to Google earth.

flagged Greenshank

With a whole flock of Avocets way off in the distance.

Birding life wasn't always like this round these parts!

going going gone

Well finally it does look as as if the Hobbies are finally on their way.  All three juveniles still camped out in their favourite two oaks mid-week, but only two yesterday and one today.   But the last one still seems to be doing nicely- skimming low over the sugarbeet field to pluck Willow Emerald Damselflies out of the riverside hedge.  Tense moment when a presumed migrant juvenile Peregrine drifted in from the north:  here's a digiscope of the young Hobby looking up and keeping an eye.

Time to head south!

Meantimes one last Hobby painting for the season- hopefully some sense of lazy late September, with the ash beginning to turn to autumn