I’ve decided to resurrect my blog, after 6 years of being dormant to work alongside a long-term project that I have always wanted to do and that is a national bird field guide. The opportunity has now arisen with a brilliant and enthusiastic field birder, who will be the author and more updates will occur soon. The following plate will be among many for the project, and I’ve been lucky enough to have most species of young tit going through, or breeding in my garden, so I have been studying them over the last few weeks. I would love to have both British Marsh and Willow Tit, in my Cheshire garden, but alas no and these are not relevant to the project anyway, the Coal Tit in the form britiannicus is also not relevant but the form hibernicus would be, so that gives a hint to the field guide.

TWITTER

I'm now on twitter posting new images, sketches on a daily basis.
https://twitter.com/scally_ray

2016

Finally back on top of things and will be hoping to post more often, the last year or so has been joyous but also filled with grief after the death of a good friend Martin Garner who I worked with right up till the end on a third book in the Birding Frontiers series. As many of you will know I illustrated Martins first two books in the Challenge series and had so many more in the pipeline. Martin was diagnosed with cancer when we were 6 weeks into the first book and his strength to continue and produce the 2 books in the series have given me such an incentive in relation to never giving up! The joyous parts were the success of both books which Martin saw published and sell out! I've also worked on two other great projects, The Birds of Spurn by Andy Roadhouse and The Breeding Birds of Barnsley, both to be published this year. I will now be concentrating on developing my artwork technique and trying new things along with birding! I lost my last two springs by working on the Challenge Series so am taking a deserved break to paint for myself, this will mean far more updates to the blog, also getting the website updated and the start of a twitter account! Below are the two spine paintings I have done for The Birds of Spurn, the Roller, and The Breeding Birds of Barnsley, the Hawfinch.
I've also just come back from Estonia and will update with my Steller's Eider study sheet shortly.

STUDIO WORK

Just finished off all the illustrations for the Spurn Bird Report and Yorkshire Bird Report which gives me a bit of a lift as I have all the time now to concentrate on the books. I've attached a Wryneck which will be reproduced in Spurn Wildlife, this is a quick photo of the painting! now to get on with the books! will post more on those next week!

BIRDING FRONTIERS - WINTER

Well, its all started again, the daunting but enjoyable task of working on the second in the series of the Birding Frontiers seasonal books. We are now starting the Winter edition and fingers crossed it will again be a great seller. There's nothing changed, same author designer and me and same format, a great design and layout by Chris Gaughan of Designwing. I work 4 chapters at a time, so basically I will line draw out all the four chapters, stretch the paper, draw up the 4 chapters and then paint! I've included my first draft line drawings of the large pipits which goes to Martin Garner for approval of shape etc! These will be revised and tweaked this weekend, I've stretched the paper and hopefully the first finished pencil lines will hit the paper on Monday!

GREAT WHITE EGRET

Irrespective of the forecast of gale force winds and rain I headed over to the Wirral with 2 target species, Purple Sandpiper and Hen Harrier. It was gale force winds at New Brighton,

the chance of sketching the Purple Sandpipers was zero as I could hardly stand up, a successful trip seeing two birds, moving onto Inner Marsh Farm RSPB I connected with a superb ringtail Hen Harrier close to the hide so the two target species were nailed. The bonus birds of the day were two Great White Egrets sheltering in the gale force winds in the long reedy grass, there was also a lovely low sun, one of the birds stayed relatively still for a few minutes allowing me the attached study.

NEW YEAR

Its going to be a busy 2015 with 3 books on the go, firstly after the hugely successful Birding Frontiers Autumn book we are now starting on the Winter version to be hopefully published and released at the next Rutland Bird Fair, also alongside this and in the same series I will be working on a Gulls book dealing with the large gulls. Finally the long awaited Birds of Spurn by Andy Roadhouse will be the final publication, I will be doing the cover of that and an internal spread. I will be starting the Birding Frontiers Winter book next week and will be doing weekly updates on the blog, the blog has been neglected but I have cut back on work this year to spend more time updating it on a weekly basis!
The study sheet below was undertaken yesterday at Newchurch Common in Cheshire of a Smew.