I had just started the ‘Lapwings’ sketches in Norfolk when the news seemed to imply unbelievably that we could be shortly in lockdown. We left Norfolk to return to Kent with only days to spare.

Back in the studio, I tried to create the composition for ‘Lapwings’. I was pleased with what I had but there were a few parts of the lapwings where I had not captured sufficient details. I posted on Instagram a few initial sketches and said the visit was cut short due to the lockdown.

The Sandwich Bird Observatory messaged. They had been closed over the winter while they had created a new bird scrape. It was not open to the public yet. They said that I could go for a sneak preview of the new hides ahead of the official opening. The new scrape was bare of flora and fauna. There was a couple of Egyptian geese having a paddle but nothing else. Then from all the birds I would have expected to see, a lapwing appeared.

A second followed. I was there just a couple of hours. I was so pleased out of all the birds that could have arrived it was the ones I was desperate to see. The composition was now complete. A few days later the lockdown restrictions increased and the hides were out of the permitted distance of travel. 



Limited edition 3 block linoprint, printed on St Cuthbert Mill’s Somerset paper 300g/m2