Painting Peregrines in the City

I've been putting the finishing touches to this acrylic study of a peregrine falcon this week.

I was inspired to pick up my paintbrushes after watching a pair of peregrines hunting from the medieval pinnacles of York Minster a week ago. This a painting of the female.

I've also painted the male (above) and am planning to perch him on a gargoyle in the final picture. These cathedral carvings are so impressive. I think they really complement this magnificent hunter.

I first spotted this pair during a tour of York's city centre to promote my latest exhibition, which is all about the wonderful wildlife that we have living amongst us here in Yorkshire.

I had been challenged to find wildlife in the centre of a city and had been surprised at how much there was to see. I watched a pied wagtail roost and spotted long tailed tits and goldcrests in the city gardens.

And since my visit I've heard of a grey wagtail roost near the City Screen cinema on the riverbank.

On Friday BBC Look North joined me on a tour of the city to see what else we could find. It was great to watch the reaction of passers by when we told them we were filming a peregrine falcon!

People who visit my gallery here in Thixendale, North Yorkshire, are always telling me that I'm so lucky to live here on the Yorkshire Wolds where the wildlife is so abundant.

Of course I am lucky, but wildlife is everywhere and I think if you look hard enough, even in the most unexpected of places, you can enjoy some incredible spectacles.

If you can watch the fastest bird in the world on the Minster in York, you can enjoy wildlife anywhere!

City Wildlife

I am currently exhibiting a new collection of paintings of wildlife in Yorkshire and after claiming that this county is teaming with incredible species I was challenged by Radio York to see what could be found in York city centre.

Before I took the radio interviewer on a wildlife tour of the city, I decided to go out on a 'reccy' and was delighted when one of the first things I spotted was a peregrine perched on  a gargoyle on York Minster.

There turned out to be a pair there and I got this shot of the male and female perched on either side of the north window of the main tower .

I spotted a pigeon skeleton draped over a gargoyle (pictured on the right hand gargoyle, above) and realised that the pinnacles of this impressive medieval cathedral are the urban equivalent to a precipitous cliff and represent a great vantage point from which to hunt pigeons.

I watched the male as he eyed a flock of pigeons that had just landed underneath him. Then he started to flap his wings deliberately to frighten the pigeons. As they set off the peregrine lurched off the gargoyle into a spectacular stoop.

As the pigeons plummeted to the ground, tumbling and twisting through the air and swapping positions to confuse the peregrine, it dropped behind them with its wings pointed like a fighter pilot.

I could hear the wind rushing through the pigeons' wings as they pulled up over a small tree above my head and then I caught the sound of wind shooting through the peregrine's wings as it pulled out of its stoop .

He had missed but no doubt he would be back again.

The experience was so exciting I decided to return later to see if I could get more shots to paint from. I have painted a peregrine before, see above, but I am now considering a new painting with the Minster ramparts as a backdrop!

And if the peregrine sighting wasn't good enough I then toured the rest of the city and watched a sparrowhawk hunting a pied wagtail right above the heads of shoppers along Parliament Street!

I also saw a pair of goldcrests and a flock of long-tailed tits in Museum Gardens. It's incredible how much wildlife there was to be found in the centre of the city and how few people seemed aware of the lives of the species all around them.