Painting Stumpy

During the last month there have been reports of a couple of the elusive Long Eared Owls at the reserve at Aberlady so we wondered if we would manage to catch a glimpse of either ‘Stumpy’ or ‘Ginger’. No luck but we did see many other birds including a blackcap, fieldfare, wigeon and off Gullane Point we saw many eider ducks but very few small waders like we had seen near North Berwick on Saturday.

However we were very lucky on our way back.  The renowned wildlife artist, Darren Woodhead , had just started to paint one of the owls with his telescope trained on it.   He let us look through at ‘Stumpy’ sitting on a stump among the buckthorn.   Without his guidance we would not have seen the owl as I just could not locate him through my binoculars. 

We loved his paintings when we had seen them at an exhibition and it was a privilege to see him in action.  He paints in the open air and the cold weather seldom worries him as he even likes the effect that damp or freezing weather has on the watercolours and paper as he paints. He recently did a series of paintings for BBC Winterwatch in the cold snowy Cairngorms.  (If you are interested and live in the east of Scotland he has another exhibition at the Ornithologist Centre in Aberlady next winter).

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