A Lapwing Feathursday

The Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) is a wading bird in the family Charadriidae, which includes lapwings, plovers, and dotterels. It is a resident of Great Britain where the noted British naturalist artist and illustrator Charles Tunnicliffe (1901-1979) observed these birds and depicted them in his chapter on "Plumage Study" in Bird Portraiture (“How To Do It” Series No. 35), published in London and New York by The Studio in 1945. Tunnicliffe writes:

I think you will agree now that a knowledge of plumage changes is important, for it would never due to put a fine cock Lapwing, in summer plumage, in the middle of a December landscape. Remember that there is always a fierce ornithologist just round the corner, ready to pounce and rend you as soon as you make a "birdy" faux-pas.

Our copy of Bird Portraiture is from the collection of the Library of the Akron Art Institute with its bookplate, and is a gift to UWM Special Collections from our friend Tony Drehfal.

The lesson: don't make "birdy" faux-pas!

View more posts with works by Charles Tunnicliffe.

Prickly Peach. Great Blue Heron showing off her plumage at dusk.

I recently started watching The Boys, and I made several drawings that I didn't upload here.