Sparrowhawks: Love or Hate?

Love them or hate them, you have to admire sparrowhawks for their lightening speed and superior skill as hunters.

I've been studying one for a painting and I have mixed feelings about it when it takes birds from my garden. Read about my efforts to get it to comply as a painting model in the Yorkshire Post.

A prickly painting model

Remember the hedgehog I rescued last winter? I grew so fond of him I decided to put him to work as a model. 

This painting of him posing in a bed of autumn leaves was the centrepiece of my Christmas exhibition. I like my paintings to reflect the connections that I will have established between myself and the animal or bird portrayed - I certainly got to know this little chap very well - even after he had been released back into the wild I was painting his spines.

The average hedgehog has over 7,000 so it was a painstaking, though loving, process! Read about my the experience in the Ryedale Gazette & Herald this week and in the Yorkshire Post last month.