Elegug Stack Loomery

Elegug Stack (2/3 of West side)

Elegug, detail 

Elegug, detail

This drawing is of the view of Elegug stack loomery (guillemot colony) from the West, or at least 2/3 of the visible colony. On the East side of the stack the rock face slopes at a gentle angle, accommodating the main mass of breeding birds, so that really this drawing shows about a tenth or less of the full loomery. I started it Saturday mid morning as a study for a painting, but found myself still drawing late Sunday evening; surprisingly I ran out of paper (180cm in length) before the will to live. In fact it was one of the most absorbing experiences I've ever had drawing, the graphite moved speedily across the paper allowing me to cover far more ground than I could ever do with paint. At this level of observational detail I learnt to find my way around the colony by locating individual birds by their territories, which remained constant amidst the chaos, so much so that I found I could pick up the drawing after a night away and find the incubating birds at least, in the same position. Through out the drawing I came across surprises; an electric blue egg flashed for a second, or a bridled guillemot, a white streak highlighting the eye (interesting to see the only bridled birds were all paired together), a battle scared bird, white bib stained crimson. More captivating than anything else was, once I had established a rough plan of the territories, beginning to recognise some of the interactions and behaviours. 

Guillemots are known for their tightly packed colonies, being more tolerant of close nesting neighbours than any other UK species. Elegug is extreme, in putting this tolerance to the test, fights are constantly breaking out with birds jousting with their bills. In more serious bouts birds lock bills and grapple as one tries to sling the other out of its domain, with the defeated often ending up in another battle with the bird whose territory it has ended up being evicted into. Fights are most common when a bird alights on the stack or needs to take off from the edge as their is no choice but to walk over other members of the colony. At the other end of the spectrum pairs groom one another and I suspect their neighbours, offer fish and as I read in Tim Birkhead's 'Bird Sense' it is possible to watch a guillemot calling for its mate coming in from the sea long before it is in view. Some birds seem to be better tolerated, perhaps being more dominant they can walk untroubled through large sections of the loomery and perch boldly in the centre of the chaos. Others are quickly pushed to the peripheries where the cliff drops away, probably non-breeding birds. 

The shadows of gulls and jackdaws constantly slide over the colony like search lights trailing waves of anxious bows and stretches. In the chasm below, young peregrine signal their hunger with piercing loud calls and their parents sail nonchalantly out again over the easy pickings. 

Above all, Elegug evokes a sense of tension where guillemots, clearly disadvantaged on land endure a precarious existence, rife with predation and competition at the pinnacle of their life-cycle.          

Natur Cymru - Nature of Wales: Siskin comes 1st in wildlife art competition

Natur Cymru - Nature of Wales: Siskin comes 1st in wildlife art competition: The first Natur Cymru wildlife art competition has been won by Chris Willbank from Llanidloes for his painting of a Siskin. Chris will recei...

Nant Yr Arian

Feeding time at Nant Yr Arian, drawing from a new view point. Dense fog means the kites take a long time to build up confidence and wait for better visibility, heard but not seen. An hour late, one swoops into view before more can be seen congregating in the background before drifting through the picture plain and descend on mass into the foreground. cb Vdb (qr)

Newquay Coast

Headed West over the snowy pass in a bid to escape our endless winter inland and to Craig yr Aderyn (bird rock), Ceredigion's main sea bird colony of mostly guillemot as well as razorbill, kittiwake, shag and cormorant. The cliffs won't be packed here until the birds start laying and feeding chicks in May to June, but the guillemots stake out the best ledges and display around now, so already there is a good sprinkling of birds about. Much of the colony is directly below the precipice and impossible to see, but on occasion in a lull of the swell and buffered upwards on the wind, I catch the familiar sound of the sea cliffs coming to life and a warm sense of Spring, tantalisingly close. 

5 choughs weave their own sharp lyric into the cliff-scape as they pass from time to time in typical aerobatic display. A Peregrine, silent marauder, at one point provides the loudest crescendo as it sends the kittiwake colony spilling off the cliff in a snowy white outburst of alarm; Kittiwake! Kittiwake! name calling over and over as they tumble onto the safe surface of the sea.

The painting is made from an outcrop below the path that gives good but distant views of a small group of displaying guillemots,tight groups head bobbing and jostling on prime ledges.  The geology of brittle shale like stone eroding in vast sheets has formed layer after layer of perfect high rise terraces for the birds. Guano stained ledges delineate the potentially vast extent of the colony once breeding is in full swing. This ends further up the headland where the perfectly horizontal ledges rear up in a swirling kink of strata, impossible to cling to, let alone lay an egg on.

(Bad in anything Northerly)

Common Snipe, Pwll Penarth

Snipe line the shore of snow capped islands. Static,  intersecting bills divide the space, angled against the mottled plumage of one another. Slender green tinged legs end in a splay of tendril toes, rooted to the cold mud. The pattern repeats along the shore line, and in reverse as reflections in motionless water; turgid, clotting, on the turn as the temperature fluctuates around zero. As I draw the seemingly static motif, the cunning, shape-shifting snipe come to life, switching and swapping at every drop of the eye to take up new statuesque postures. In detail, I appreciate the maze of striation, barring and swirling plumage that for once stand out against the clean white backdrop.    

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.