Singing for me supper

Well, no I haven't vanished off of the face of the earth since my last posting way back in the mists of time, but due to a rather longer than planned painting sabbatical and a slight career change you can now find me working away elsewhere at a little place called BackCountry Strings 

Here I'm cheerfully beavering away at building custom musical instruments, fiddles, banjos, lap guitars and the like. We're all still happily living in Middlewood and the work is still artistic(I hope!) so if you like pop over and have a look. Will  be throwing in a painting or two every now and then plus the usual observations on cornish life so hopefully there will be something of interest,

 cheers for now

Return of the Grizzly

Some of you may remember this guy from earlier posts. Grizzly bear fishing for salmon on an Alaskan river. I've had this canvas sitting at home for a few months now and have finally got round to finishing him off (I think). As I don't have any new exhibitions coming up for the rest of the year I've decided to take a punt and put the chap up for online auction. EEK! Don't do this very often but occasionally have made some good sales when I've least expected it, so what the heck. If he doesn't sell I may take him back to the easel and do some more work in readiness for the new year's round of exhibtions.

Anyhow, if you would like to check out the auction you can see it here - The Fisherman - Grizzly Bear

A Not So Common Lizard

Discovered this little chap hiding under the draught excluder in the front room the other night - a very cold and sleepy common lizard

We've had a number of others of his ilk visit us in the wee small hours over the years, several of these have unfortunately turned up dead and once I even stepped on a recently deceased individual whilst I was heading for the fridge in the dark, but this is the first one we've managed to capture on camera. Admittedly the photo is pretty terrible, but it was difficult to focus the camera whilst holding the little guy at the same time! Anyway, you get the idea.

After the photocall he started to warm up a little so I took him outside to the safety of a small woodpile away from predators and small, determined dogs.

Interesting...(or perhaps not)

Talking as I was the other post about new identities and such like, thought some of you may be interested in a new blog which has recently appeared online. It's only just started so there's not much info up there yet. Also it's slightly off-topic as it's not directly related to wildlife art or wildlife-anything - in fact it's more of a travelogue-come community noticeboard really -but, hey, the author's a bit odd and it might raise a few laughs out there.

You can check it out at The Shanty Islander

Now back to my paintbrushes (new pics coming soon)...

Dogfight over East Moor

About a mile north of Hawkstor on Bodmin Moor is an area called East Moor. This is one of my favourite parts of the moor, littered with neolithic remains, ruined roundhouses and standing stones, including a fantastic stone circle called the Nine Stones, where during wetter months(i.e. most of the year in Cornwall) the stones actually stand in the middle of a pool of peat-stained water. Anyway, Sunday morning was beautiful and clear, so we trekked out over a beautiful domed hill (which the ordanance survey has imaginatively entitled "Ridge"). Avoiding a wandering gang of belligerent bullocks, we climbed the hill and reached the top to be greeted by the fantastic sight above us of an aerial battle between seven buzzards and five ravens. For maybe ten minutes they whirled about in the blue sky, tumbling rolling, clashing together then wheeling away. The buzzards flashed their talons,but the ravens, despite being outnumbered, definitely had the best of it - attacking and harassing the birds of prey again and again, all the time yelling their insults and generally driving the buzzards mad. Finally, probably deciding they couldn't stand any more hooliganism, the buzzards spiralled up higher on the warm air rising from the hill and eventually dispersed towards the distant bulk of Kilmar Tor. As for the Ravens, well they had a good laugh and flew off too. Typical corvids, all they'd wanted was a good scrap.

I have a new identity

Well, I've bit the proverbial bullet and changed the name of the blog. The old Joel Merriner Wildlife Art Blog had become a bit too industrial and utilitarian for my liking, and not really reflective of the mixed bag of content included here lately. Anyhoo, hope you like the new moniker, keep checking back more changes to come...

Cornwall Wildlife Trust Art Exhibition

My painting "The Buzzard Rock" has such been selected for inclusion in Cornwall Wildlife Trust's Inspired and Wild touring art exhibition to take place this autumn at various venues across Cornwall

To quote from the CWT website -

"Cornwall Wildlife Trust is holding an exciting Art Exhibition this autumn, which will help to raise vital funds for the Trust as well as showcasing the wealth of local artistic talent from around the county. Entitled ‘Inspired and Wild: Celebrating Cornwall’s Art and Wildlife’, the exhibition will tour from 1st October until the end of January. The tour promises to be a fantastic way to raise awareness of the Trust’s work, and aims to display different interpretations of the wildlife and habitats it protects and conserves in Cornwall."

All work will be for sale with 40% of profits going to help fund the Trust's different conservation projects. Venues will include the The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Geevor Tin Mine, and the Cornish Studies Library as well as the CWT's own headquarters in Allet near Truro.

You can read more about the exhibition and the CWT's work at -

http://www.cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk/

Long live the Wood Wasp

Well the wasp reign of terror is at an end - the clear skies and cooler nights of the last couple of weeks have done their work and silenced the roaming worker wasps that had been plaguing our garden. However it's not all tragedy for buzzing types...

A couple of days ago I was down the road in Berrio Bridge, stood with a friend of mine discussing how yet another passing car had managed to smash a hole into the side of the 500 year old tudor bridge that spans the Lynher at that point, when a huge insect flew out for under the disturbed granite blocks and buzzed menacingly around our heads. It was very large, much bigger than a hornet, with vivid orange wings, abdomen and legs. It landed right next to me on the bridge and it's inch long ovipositor (egg laying gadget) was there for all to see. No doubting whatsoever, this was a Giant Wood Wasp (Urocerus gigas) or Horntail -a dramatic looking guy who would scare the life out of you as soon as look at you, but in reality is totally harmless. Doesn't even have a sting. In fact he's not even a wasp but actually a variety of sawfly.

But still, he looks good. What do you reckon? Click here

The Lodger

Seems we may have an uninvited guest hiding somewhere in the house. Got up the other morning, followed my usual breakfast routine - cups of tea, baby's milk bottle(for the baby obviously), dog biscuits(for me), toast...hmm.

That's when I noticed it - a large hole in the bread bag, with a corresponding hole in the last slice of bread, plus crumbs and chewed pieces of cellophane all across the worktop. Obviously the work of a rodent of some description, far too neat and tidy for a rat, so had to have been a little house mouse. Kept a vigil but no sign of him in the last day or two however, so I'm thinking of scattering some flour across various likely approach routes in the kitchen to see if I can get some footprints to record. A humane trap then seems the likely way to go. Just hope for micey's sake he doesn't encounter the dog before me.

A house mouse, yesterday.

Reign of the Wasps

As the title of this post suggests wasps numbers around these parts are way higher than for many a year. One of our apple trees is literally Wasp City UK at the moment, with hundreds of the little critters buzzing and chomping their way through our nice braeburns. Any apples that fall on the ground are soon covered in with sometimes up to twenty drunken striped individuals stuffing their little insect faces. Seems the whole country is experiencing a bumper year for wasps, particularily right now when the worker wasps are no longer fed sugary treats in the nest so have to disperse to fruit trees, recycling bottles, and discarded jam jars for their fix of the white stuff. Still, weather is cooling fast now, and the choir invisible beckons...

Tis sad but at least I might get some apple pie this year.

The Gathering on the Hill

Buzzards were massing today over Caradon Hill. We must have seen at least twenty of them all at one time, rising on the thermals, tumbling through the air, calling to each other and some even exploding up out of the bracken when we passed by. Looked like a mixture of adults, this year's young now on the wing and possibly some of last years thrown in for good measure. Mix that in with a pair of wheatears, half a dozen ravens, a sparrowhawk being mobbed by four swallows and a Hercules transport plane flying past below where we walking and it all added up to a lively afternoon stroll.

Mirkwood

Took a little stroll into the depths of Hawkswood this afternoon. I may have mentioned this place before, -a large, and brooding conifer wood to the south of Kilmar Tor. It dominates this end of the Lynher Valley and looms over Middlewood as you drive down into our little hamlet. I only took a short walk, with the pup in tow, as rain was teeming down and the rest of the family were waiting nearby in a nice dry car, but enough to know I should go back again on a better day for some serious exploring.

The interior of the wood is very shady and carpeted with moss and clover, even the fallen logs are thick with the stuff and fungi thrive in the damp conditions. Sound is quite muffled and I could only really hear the occasional bird call. Here and there stand black barked and twisted decidious trees which look very strange amidst the lighter trunks of the conifers. I noticed signs of deer beneath some of these - there are supposed to be quite a number of roe roaming the Hawkswood.

I could also imagine other creatures moving through the trees -dark creeping figures with luminous eyes and cloaked Victorian gentleman with tall hats and no faces....

Hmm. Back to the car I think.

Latest artwork Herring Gull

I've just been doodling away on a little sketch-book style illustration of a herring gull sat among thrift flowers on a south western-esque cliff top. It's deliberately quite loosely painted as I've tried to capture a bit of the spontaneity found painting in the field. Planning on do a few more like this, maybe some roe deer or foxes.

Fly by Day

About two hundred yards down the road from here, towards the neighbouring hamlet of Berrio Bridge is a stretch of road which is shaded by overhanging trees. On a sunny day it is quite cool and with dappled patches of light here and there. I walk down their literally every day, usually about oneish in the afternoon (hey I'm a creature of habit) and for the last two days have been rewarded with the fantastic sight of a single pipistrelle bat flying up and down the road hunting for insects. Now we often see various types of bats around here, quite often in the evening around dusk, but this is the first time I've seen one hunting in broad, albeit dappled, daylight. The little guy performs all manner of aerial acrobatics, flying right past my head and even skimming just above the road surface. We've had a huge amount of rain and bad weather here lately so my hunch is this chap, being a bat and like most bats prefering not to hunt in bad conditions is making the best of the recent warm sun and piling in as much grub as possible. And good luck to him I say.

The Colour of Buzzards

The old common buzzard seems to come in a variety of shades and hues. I've seen very pale. almost white ones, brown ones, spotted ones and at the moment our neighbourhood is being graced with the darkest coloured one I think I've ever seen. I've seen it several times in the last few days and he or she is dark umber in colour, almost black, on top and charcoal grey under the wings, with a reddish chestnut patch on both shoulders. Seen quickly overhead it resembles a slightly bizarre raven until you get a proper look and then everything about it is unmistakeably buzzard.

Wildlife Art Company

I'm very pleased to relate that I've just teamed up with an exciting new illustration agency called the Wildlife Art Company -

"The Wildlife Art Company provides accurate and exquisite illustrations for publication.
Established by zoologist and author, Mark Carwardine, and run by natural-history editor, Rachel Ashton, who together have many years of experience in the wildlife-publishing industry, the agency was created in response to a demand for high-quality artwork of the natural world.
Representing some of the world’s best natural-history artists, we cover a huge range of species. We also take commissions for any specific image as required and offer prints, originals and sculptures, too."

Here's looking forward to some interesting projects in the future

Hawkstor

The sun was out nice and hot this afternoon so me and the dog went for a quick blast up Hawkstor to get some exercise and some reference photos(me only, not the dog) for possible future paintings. Hawkstor is one of my favourite tors. It's only about half a mile up the lane and commands a stunning vantage point looking east towards Dartmoor in Devon, with the whole expanse of Bodmin Moor behind, stretching away to the west. It's also a great place to let the dog run wild, as the whole of the tor is set aside to nature, fenced off from sheep, which is allowing the native plant life to slowly return.


Anyway, we zipped up the slopes, scrambled over the spine of huge granite outcrops that crown the top and generally had a great time behaving like mountain goats. Buzzards quartered the blue sky above and everything was very green and lush. So, here are a few pictures.....

Approaching the crag

Looking west from the top, towards Trewortha Tor

Rain shapes and carving in rock

Looking east, Devon-ways

National Exhibition of Wildlife Art

Just sent off my two entries for this year's National Exhibition of Wildlife Art -

Among the Ruins - Short Eared Owl

Face to Face - African Elephant

For those who don't know.... (I quote from the NEWA website)

"The National Exhibition of Wildlife Art is an open annual exhibition based in the North of England.
NEWA was conceived in 1994 by a group of artists interested in depicting wildlife, with conservation as one of their underlying concerns. A donation from the exhibition is made each year to wildlife causes such as the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust and The Wirral Barn Owl Trust.
The aims of the exhibition are to promote and display outstanding examples of wildlife art from both professional and amateur artists.
The huge interest generated by the exhibition among wildlife artists proved that there was a pressing need for this kind of event.
Our exhibition is staged at Gordale Garden Centre which attracts a constant stream of visitors, over 12,000 to our 2007 show. Our new website attracted an overwhelming 12,272 visitors who viewed over 190,000 pages. The website received excellent reviews, calling it the best on line gallery of 2007.
Due to this increasing success entries have risen with each subsequent year. 2007 again saw over 40% of the works on show sold, a very high percentage for any exhibition."

The exhibition runs from Friday 17th July - Sunday 2nd August. For further information, visit the website at http://www.newa-uk.com/ (where you can also purchase works online once the exhibition is running)

War without End

My dog hates flies. It's bad enough when he encounters them outdoors, in their natural habitat, but when they dare to come inside, into his territory, and then buzz around the house like they own the place, well that's enough to drive him totally mad. No matter what their size, from miniscule micro-flyette to huge horsefly, if he sees one ,or worse still hears one, then I'm afraid they must die! And if they can't be despatched instantly then he is forced to retire upstairs and sit under the bed grumbling until I have the offending insect removed.

There can be only one....

Ships that pass...

Wonderful encounter yesterday evening, happened to be walking the dog through a field of wildflowers a few miles to the west of here, when I caught sight of a movement in the long grass to our right. A huge male fox, very black in the body but with a bright red head and shoulders, appeared trotting along parralel to us. I stopped and froze in true BBC wildlife cameraman style (luckily without Jake the dog noticing the fox's prescence) but the fox carried on a little further, veered left, crossing our path in the process, then pushed through a thick patch of campion and buttercups and disappeared into the woods beyond.