Yesterday the Bradley's opened their farm to the public at Sutton Bonnington, Leicestershire. The first lambs of the year had just been born, as had some calves. Pregnant ewes awaiting their time lay around in comfortable stalls, whilst those who had given birth continually 'lost' and then re-found their newborns, creating a constant noise of bleeting.
Children were allowed to handle the lambs much to the concern of the ewes, the newly borns seeming completely unconcerned at being stroked and petted.

All the animals appreared extremely well looked after, and the farm had a very calm air about it.

Pizzas were available, (you had to prepare them yourself), which were then were baked in a wood fired oven right there in the farmyard. The day was a rare treat, thank-you to the Bradleys and their team for a very generous day.

This was on the website a little while ago, I removed it but have since had questions about how the cockerels in particular are actually made - so here it is reinstated, a step by step explanation of how I build the large cockerels.

I have been making some lino prints of late. This simple process, known to many from their school days is very simple but capable of some very strong images. At it's most basic it involves cutting away areas of a sheet of lino, what is removed will print as white, what is left as black. The lino is then inked up and sent through a press to print the image onto paper. Some of the prints I will leave as black and white, others I am hand colouring with watercolours. I have twelve nearly finished which go onto the site in the near future.

I have just returned from a weekend in Suffolk, largely spent in and around RSPB Minsmere. This is one of the RSPB's finest reserves set on the Suffolk coast close to Aldeburgh. It was a cold but intensely bright weather with this beautiful area looking stunning in the sunlight.

I was fortunate enough to witness a normally extremely elusive bittern who decided to show itself for a short time. Emerging from the 6' high reeds it started to feed delicately, before a pair of geese took exception to this shy bird and it slunk back to it's watery home. A real treat and one that more than made up for a relatively 'quiet' weekend of birding.

The lecture and demonstration on 21st March at The University of Derby that I am doing has booked up at quite a pace. If you are planning to come along to this I would book as soon as you can. Places are limited and there are only a few left. FULLY BOOKED

For the last week these two have made almost daily visits to my garden bird table. In spite of very watchful local cats and aggressive robins they appear to get a good share of bird seed. Though very nervous compared to other garden birds they did allow me to stand in my kiln room doorway and get some reasonable photographs.

We so rarely get these in our garden, I am always envious of those people that say they find them to be regular visitors. This pair of bullfinches turned up today, possibly driven to feed at the bird table by a very hard frost last night. Rather appropriate as it happened as I have been working on a sculpture today involving a bullfinch for the forthcoming 'Fauna' show at Gallerytop.

Just returned from a ‘falconry experience’ at The Falconry Centre, near Stourbridge. This was a gift from my daughter and rather a good one at that! In spite of a bitterly cold day the birds flew from my fist for a wide range of incentives. The little owl fed on tiny morsels of chicken, whilst the vulture gulped down (dead),day old chicks in one swallow. Having one of these birds delicately alight on your fist was remarkable; feeling the creatures weight and its’ movement as it re-balanced itself brought home yet again to me that these birds in particular are really not of this world but something very strange and special. As I held them it dawned upon me that they had no interest in me whatsoever, I was merely a convenient perch from which to spy out the next piece of food. I was reminded of the late poet laureate, Ted Hughes writing of a hovering bird of prey in his poem ’The Hawk in the Rain’,

“Effortlessly at height hangs his still eye.
His wings hold all creation in a weightless quiet,
Steady as a hallucination in the streaming air.”