Dotterels on Orkney

by Tim Wootton

Tim has been watching and drawing birds since his childhood in Yorkshire. Although he works on large scale paintings, the inspiration is always observations made in the field. He was shortlisted for the 'Swarovski Young European Bird Artist of the Year' award, 1991 and was Wildscape Magazine's 'Wildlife Artist of the Year' (editor's category), 2008. He lives and works as an artist and writer in the Orkney Islands. "From the familiar to the less-so. The beauty of our hobby is that anything can turn up – anytime. Such was the case when the country was peppered with reports of dotterel and it was surely just a matter of time before these beautiful little plovers turned up here. So when a small flock of seven birds appeared near the airport in Tankerness, I set of to re-acquaint myself with a species I hadn't seen for thirty years. The first drawings are quite tentative as I tried to sort out the plumage details. The thrill of seeing the birds combined with the uncertainty of not knowing how long they would stick around added to the experience. " See Tim's Arctic Skuas from Orkney