Fieldfare, Caersws

Flock of c.200 winter thrush and many more starling, make forays from hedge to ground, on a wet day. 

Car Park Punks

Another Waxwing explosion this year, after the berry crops of their usual wintering grounds on the continent have failed. I have anticipated their arrival since early November, tracking reports of their mass invasion moving steadily South from Orkney, Aberdeen and then closer to home the other week with 250+ in North Wales. Like two years ago when they last showed in Mid Wales, I first found our Waxwings in the local college car park gorging on fluorescent orange  berries of an ornamental Rowan tree at the end of the last row of parking bays. They are pretty birds, rare, tolerant of people with a pleasing almost purring call and congregate in big flocks. Not surprisingly the college waxwings draw a crowd of birders, photographers and the local ringing group. In turn we attract enough attention from the students, lined up peering down the railway track fence laden with Hawthorn, are we trainspotting? I could correct them but realise it's much of a muchness. 

So this particular car park is mildly hostile for an anorak  where the main occupation is driving around between speed bumps at the top of the rev limiter - colourful driving the grounds man who has taken a real shine to the waxwings calls it, when seriously concerned for our safety. But the real attitude in the car park is the pack of 100 so punk crested waxwings, necking berry after berry until the Sorbus are stripped and then moving onto the Hawthorn, this is what keeps me coming back and sucking up the mild abuse that comes from standing on my own in sight of an adolescent smoker's corner, at an easel with bins glued to my eyes, a brush in one hand and a palette in the other; "Oi mate... Oi LENSY!... what you looking at?!....(me) birds?....Ideal!...what sort... Brunettes! ....(me) nice one, do you want to have a look?" 

To be fair a nice lady offered me a cup of tea the other day, that was when it was really cold. During these cold snaps the birds become even bolder, dangling and gulping at the low hanging berries just a few feet from our faces. On wet weekends when there are no cars about they come onto the ground to drink and flutter in the puddles, it can become a real frenzy with a constant conveyor of trilling birds commuting between bush and water. After all this time the one thing that still spooks them are the trains, every two hours one passes and like a touch paper ignites every bush along the back of the car park in succession sending flocks of frantic, screeching waxwing reeling into the sky. My most productive time seems to be late afternoon, when the Waxwings gather behind a classroom, filling every available limb and tangle of hawthorn bush, feeding, preening and just hanging out before the trills suddenly begin to crescendo and with a sudden eruption of flight they head purposefully West towards Mochdre to roost. Each time I realise with accute anxiety, that they may not come back as the berries thin out each day and it could be another 2, 5 even 10 years before conditions conspire for their winter return here once more. But there are so many possibilities, compositions, behaviours to paint and each drawing leads to ways I could improve on the next, this is the addiction, the anxiety, the frustration I have right now of relying on the unpredictable. 

(Cb,Ru,QR, brush, dark tones, dry, background sky- define light tones, drop in background forms,  define detail) Also working crayon/wc on Bock for large group comps, sillouette single brush tone for pre roost flocks and ideas for ground feed/drink with car park furniture on the weekend or from car in wet. 

Caersws Whooper Swan

Whoopers are back! 16 grazing a field I haven't seen them in before. Has great landscape possibilities especially in dusk light, as this sketch reminds me, from access track.

Pen y Gaer - Iron Age Fort

16 - 21 October

Exploring the Iron Age fort. Considering its position at the head of two valleys and the visual juxtaposition between the remains and surrounding landscape forms. Further interest in relationship of the prehistoric landscape and present landscape use - farmland, damning of Clywedog valley and remains of mining and macro landscape. Iron age and bronze age features (cairns, standing stones) are of interest for their position in the landscape, which was highly relevant and can perhaps be revealed or explored through visual art today.

Winter Goldies

First noticed Golden plover (x7) back on the hill 28 September. Small flock of five calling in flight late around 4.30, already getting dark, this one appeared in the col I had scoured meticulously, just as i was going to head back. Had it been there all along or just landed? Bird alert the whole time as others calling in air, I painted for about 1 hr (bs+cb, intro rs, qr -alternating foliage/plumage for drying time) before it joined others. Left around 5.45 as the 5 circling birds landed on West slope of col and seemed to be feeding. 

Kite Feeding

Example from series of studies made between 18 August and 4 September

Arrived at my latest (favourite) spot in time to put in sky for a kite feeding picture. Flat, blue-grey sky, hint of heavier clouds building on horizon. Sun a weak disk, a neat puncture in the cloud cover leaking light outwards, seeping yellow ochre flooding the wet sky. c.100 kites today and as many spectators. Kites are in molt, frayed tails barbed like streamers behind a rocketship. Primaries droop at awkward right angles which I am almost squeamish to see, realising I unintentionally interpret the whole wing as equivalent to human limbs in my nearest translation or empathy of flight. Kites gather in the trees, some spruces bending under the weight of several birds, the sound of their whistles ricochet  off the still lake and around the arena of trees.

An anticipatory hush infects the waiting crowd once the food is thrown across the feeding area, before the kites gather. They are wary despite their apparent familiarity and punctuation with feeding time day after day, circling tighter and lower until one bird will fold its wings tight back and drop to the floor; more follow twisting in tight corkscrews to the ground. The frenzy is tight and I hear the thwack as birds collide, though with little consequence. Some I notice are bolder stooping straight through the pussy footing flock with the confidence of a peregrine. Others, prefer the benefits of piracy, maybe they lack the confidence to go to ground although I think some occupy their time waiting for the flock to mass for the next feed by stealing on the wing. Every 20 minutes or so the flock regroups above the feeding station with the last bout being between 5.00 and 6.00 (depending on the day) before the kites drift away and the crows move in. On the way home, at Llanbrynmiar I  pass the usual group of kites, probably going to roost, I am sure they have come from the feeding.

Two Colour (um+bs) wash to draw the kites (in later versions intro ru). Concentrate on angle of attack, wing and tail positions, depth of undercarriage, flow and clarity of wash, using the shadow and patterning to define posture and form (although silhouetted from this aspect). Later work uses bins, looking at individuals movements and movement of flock to work up an accurate convincing fluid composition with feel of the frenzy.

cb+ru+qr(sky)um+bs(kite)um+ru/cb+ru/cb+aur/bs+um(land)        

Green Sandpiper

Brief view of Green Sandpiper, a first. Used pencil for first time  in a while, allowing me to finish painting accurately after bird was flushed out of sight by Lapwing. Differences from common are lack of white shoulder, striking white eye ring and  white chequers along edge of covert/wing feathers (not shown here). At least 2 green and 2 common. Flat light turned water surface into white mirror. Generally noticed, light is turning towards more dramatic direction of winter time.