Winter Visitor

Sitting at my computer yesterday , trying to do some work, between watching the comings and goings at my bird feeders, when this fellow caught my eye. It’s a male Brambling , a member of the Finch family and a fairly uncommon , though annual, winter visitor to Ireland. I was glad to see that he is still around this morning and holding his own with the aggressive Greenfinches and Chaffinches.

 

I seem to have gone back to my first love, painting birds, something I decided long ago to give up because there are so many truly brilliant wildlife artists out there, and I’m not one of them. But in the end I think you have to do what you want to do regardless of how good or bad the results are.

This is a small painting of a young male Blackbird, coming constantly to the apples I put out, during the recent cold spell we had I sometimes had to replenish the stocks three times a day, so voracious were the birds.