Lakeland Adventure and a Tale of Two Birds

Last week, we had a trip to the Lake District. Here I am, painting on the shore of Derwentwater last Friday.  I'm distracted here by a Black-Headed Gull (below - its name is misleading because it only has a black head in Summer) which kept us company for the duration of the painting.

 

The bird alighted on the water and there it stayed, hoping for a scrap of food, silent, except when another of its species dared to fly within its airspace.  When one did, our sentinel would dip its head and let out a familiar gull-cry and, if the intruder dared to close in within 50 yards, would take off and chase the chancer away and return to its post, floating about 6 yards away from my easel.  

Here are a few more photos of the painting (a 9"x12" Oil) in progress:

 

You can clearly see the sentryman in this one (click to view full-screen)

 Painting the water as it appeared at the start.

Here's how far I got before frostbite set in in all my fingers, despite wearing fingerless gloves, and Janey couldn't feel her feet.  It was a very challenging exercise as the sky was constantly changing, and the far mountains changed in tone, becoming more milky as the weather closed in.  I had to work fast and after an hour and a quarter, I had enough down to take it back to the studio to finish off.

The second bird tale was when we got back to the sanctuary of the car when, having seen this cheeky little Robin on the wall next to the car before we trecked to the painting spot, he had left a considerable pile of poop on the wing mirror.

Here he is, admiring himself.  Actually, being very territorial, he was confused and saw the image looking back at him as another redbreast, and had obviously been attacking the 'intruder' for the last couple of hours and continued to do so as we put the gear back into the boot and climbed into the car.