5 Sept 2010

Michael O'Clery Bird Artist and His Exhibition "Birds of the West" and The Soon To Be Published "The Complete Field Guide to Ireland's Birds"





Michael O'Clery in front of his portrait of a White Tailed Eagle

Last Weekend I went to the opening of "Birds of the West Coast" by Michael O'Clery at the Graffan Gallery at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Castle Espie Centre.  Michael is one of Ireland's most talented bird artists and this exhibition proved this statement. Having never met him I was glad to finally catch up with him. I had heard much about him from Eric Dempsey, Anthony McGeehan and his sister who lived briefly next door to me.

The exhibition features many of the illustrations from the above book "The Complete Field Guide to Ireland's Birds" by Eric Dempsey and Michael which is being published this week by Gill & Macmillan.
This book is an upgrade to their "Complete Guide to Ireland's Birds" which has now been in print for 20 years. It illustrates and describes around 370 species of bird that have been found in Ireland.

There were individual portraits of birds and then there were some plates that would be in the new field guide.

The Warblers of Ireland
The Buntings of Ireland
The Shrikes of Ireland
The above plate of the shrikes was my favourite in the exhibition. If only I had a spare £500.

In another life I would come back as a bird artist. It is a talent that I wish I had. 

If you click on the blog post header it will take you to Michael's website and if you click on the galleries you can see what pictures he has for sale. 


1 comment:

Matt Latham said...

Looks like a fantastic book Craig. Michael's a cracking fella aswell - he was first on the scene when I found a citrine wagtail a few years back on the Dingle peninsular.