Art inspired by wildlife films
I’m now welcoming visitors to my art gallery in Thixendale, North Yorkshire, for my first art exhibition since the pandemic. It feels momentous to host a big event again, since, up until 2020 I held exhibitions here twice a year for nearly 20 years.
My staff and I worked extra hard to make this event especially festive. We festooned the gallery’s wooden beams with decorations, bought heaps of mince pies and I dusted off my famous recipe for warmed mulled wine. I hope visitors treat the event as a fun day out. If anything, the drive here across the rolling Yorkshire Wolds is a treat, and of course my art gifts and prints offer people a chance to pick up something unusual for Christmas during their visit.
Event shows how wildlife films inform art
Mostly , I want people to immerse themselves in wildlife. My research photographs and wildlife films are on show alongside the paintings they inspired. And I’m sharing living footage from the wildlife surveillance cameras I use to follow the individual lives of owls, kestrels, stoats and weasels living in my garden and surrounding countryside.
New kestrel portrait
One of the paintings show is a portrait of a female kestrel standing guard at the entrance to her nest. This is Mrs Kes, a formidable falcon whose dramatic life in the wild I followed daily for almost three years. Each breeding season I watched her bravely fight jackdaws and owls to secure a safe nesting site to raise her chicks, and each year she continued to defend her family with the same, determined valour.
Then this year she disappeared quite suddenly. It was quite out of character and her kestrel partner, nicknamed, appropriately, Mr Kes, was left to raise their six chicks alone. Male kestrels don’t usually get involved with feeding or brooding chicks and so, when he taught himself to do both, the story went viral with millions around the world watching as events unfolded. A film I made about this falcon family is available to watch during the exhibition alongside the portrait of Mrs Kes, which I hope is a fitting tribute to her brave, wild life.
Visitors might also get a glimpse the last of this pair’s kestrel chicks, all six of whom successfully fledged, on my live-screens. Nicknamed ‘Jeff’, this juvenile kestrel is often seen swooping across the landscape or sheltering in the entrance to his favourite nest, known as Elm Stump.
Tawny owl film
Another film on show follows the heart-warming story of Bomber and Luna, a tawny owl pair who took in two rescue owlets after their own eggs failed. The pair fussed over these foundlings with such devotion, the female Luna melting hearts as she welcomed them into her nest; lovingly tucking a chick under each wing.
Heart warming owl story
I’ve run an owl ‘creche’ here at Fotherdale for many years, placing rescued owlets from all over the country into wild nests and supporting the adult birds as they take them in alongside their own broods. So far it’s very successful, and the adults don’t seem to realise when I sneak an extra chick into the nest for them to look after.
In this case the tawny pair had just a clutch of failed eggs. But the male tawny owl, Bomber, turned out to be just as devoted to these orphaned owlets as Luna and was a great provider. Then just as the owlets were ready to take to the skies, four new rescued tawny owlets were brought to my gallery at Thixendale.
Amazingly, Bomber and Luna took these on too and I lent a helping hand by putting out extra food to supplement their natural diet. Soon, these fledged and throughout the summer I would walk down to a row of sycamore trees where I could watch the super brood, their loud hoots echoing down the valley. Luna was herself a rescued owlet, and it is wonderful to think how her story has turned full circle and she was now caring for the next generation of foundling owls to grow up here at Fotherdale Farm.
Barn owl love story
Also screening in my gallery during the exhibition is a film about a barn owl pair named Gylfie and Finn. Finn was an unusually devoted male owl and spent most of his time standing guard beside Gylfie as she sat on their clutch of four eggs. He continued to be deeply attentive long after three of the eggs hatched in June and it was fun watching the owlets grow into alert, playful characters.
Sadly, when the owlets were just month old their father Finn suddenly disappeared. I was devastated to find Finn the owl drowned in a water trough. But, with a bit of help from me, the owlets fledged in early August and I still see a few flying around the valley even now. Gylfie seemed to take the tragedy all in her stride and I’m pleased to report that soon after Finn’s loss she was seen lovingly rubbing beaks with a new male.
This new barn owl had an ID ring and with a bit of detective work I traced his history right back to my own garden. A rescued owlet, he had been found in a corn dryer and brought here to be raised by my wild owls. I had actually placed this barn owl, who I nicknamed Dryer, into a nest alongside Finn. So it turns out Gylfie’ is now dating her former partner’s stepbrother, such are the complex, and sometimes salacious, relations of the owls whose intimate lives I follow!
With a bit of luck, visitors to my exhibition might glimpse this barn owl pair happily preening one another on the live cameras alongside the paintings inspired by theirs and the many barn owl stories I’ve followed.
Exhibition’s scope is global
This year I was able to travel again, visiting Alaska and Panama to see more exotic wildlife. The event will include clips from my experience of watching bears fishing for salmon and of the sloths and eagles I saw in Central America.
And so, as the coffee brews each morning, the mulled wine is warmed, and I make my final checks to make sure the screens are working and the paintings are hung just right, I hope visitors around the country now are making their way to Thixendale to enjoy a day immersed in wildlife.
My winter wildlife exhibition is open daily at my gallery in Thixendale, North Yorkshire, from 10am-4.30pm until December 23rd.
