“Where does that header picture come from,” you ask?
It’s taken from a painting my marvellous mother-in-law, Lynda, did for me. The Eurasian Jay is my favourite bird — I love its colouring and their shape. When Ses and I lived in Blackheath I managed to tame a family of them by putting peanuts on the window ledge. They are notoriously shy, but after just a few weeks they would sit on the window ledge in the kitchen — even with the window open — looking at me and wondering where their peanuts were. What struck me about them was that they had such vivid-coloured eyes, and that they were all different. One of them had lilac eyes, so naturally that one was my favourite. And Lynda picked up on that and included that as a detail.
The full one is here:
European Jay by Lynda Miller Baker 2010
More of Lynda’s work: