chriswoodartist

another quick sketch from the cockpit. Copyright Chris N Wood.  To celebrate almost another year under the belt, we went down to the boat to eat sausage sandwiches and mince pies and check that everything was in working order. It was a cracking day,  the sun shone brightly and whilst I ran the engine, I knocked out the above sketch. What you can’t see is the incredible contrasting colours. I made a few notes in the sketchbook because pencil just doesn’t do justice to the brilliant emerald green on the head of a male mallard – nor does it show the wonderful orangey green of the remaining oak leaves that are hanging on for dear life !
With a week of strong winds and plenty of rain I suspect it will be a different story the next time we visit Birdham !
It was clearly the day for it as I met three of my neighbours too.
As usual there was an abundance of bird life including moorhens, mallards and cormorants but the highlight of the trip was as we were going home, we spotted the resident kingfisher whose plumage was again, incredible ! The iridescent turquoise green was so bright. Sadly he or she didn’t hang around to be admired and flew out from under the pontoon at breakneck speed !
more ornithological ramblings later

if you have any comments or birding stories do share them in the comments box !

cheerio 4 now