🎨My ‘yellowcircle’ for @devonopenstudios . I have signed up to my first ever Devon Open Studios in September! Thought this would give me a kick up the backside to paint more regularly. With a bit of luck I might even have some new paintings, and prints, to sell in 11 weeks 🤯😅. I think my yellowhammer painting is finished now, but I have been known to tinker later! 🙈 Acrylic paints on A6 acid free Daler Rowney mixed media paper 250gsm. Took me around 6 hours. I have trouble simplifying things, and often over complicate! Not sure I achieved a jolly happy looking bird, think he looks a bit cross.

🐤Yellowhammer must be one of my favourite British birds as I did my MSc dissertation on them 20 years ago😅. Their song is “a little bit of bread and no cheeeeeeeeeese!!!!” I surveyed them in mid-Devon and camped/stayed on a farm near #nomansland , such a cool placename! It might have been @westmiddlewickfarm , can’t remember, just that they very kindly gave me a jug of warm raw milk for breakfast one morning, weird but yum! 😉 I was studying the habitat association of yellowhammer on the #culm grasslands with #RSPB who were helping to develop the latest agri-environment schemes at that time. These schemes aim to work with farmers to protect and enhance wildlife.

Today I am pleased to see and hear yellowhammers locally on my birdsong walks. Very occasionally, if I’m lucky, I might see their rarer cousin the cirl bunting too. This painting is the scene from @bulleighbmanor who very kindly hosted a bird song walk last month. They often, amazingly, have both yellowhammer and cirl buntings on their bird feeders, but as luck would have it they were a bit shy and didn’t show themselves on our walk, typical! Mx 😉