Location.
I am unable to tell you the location but it is somewhere in a lovely Kent wood that is not open to the general public.
Many thanks to the land owners for their permission.
I had many days looking around this very dense wood and surrounding fields with beautiful trees and plants and had the opportunuty to explore this wildlife haven and see natureat it's best, unspoilt.
Within minutes a beautiful bullfinch was flying overhead and landing in the tree opposite. I saw a jay, green woodpecker, great spotted woodpecker, wren, robin, kestrel, longtail tits, greattits, bluetits, pied wagtails, rooks, spotted flycatchers, greenfinches, goldfinches and heard the lovely cuckoo and owls calling towards dusk.
The animals spotted were foxes, squirrels, a very large rabbit population, stoats and bats.
I watched the spotted flycatcher perch on a branch and constantly jump off to catch insects that fly by in the air. What a wonderful display of skill and agility to watch.In fact this very little bird kept me interested for almost a day and you have guessed rightly, I will be working on a spotted flycatcher. I was back the following sunny day, armed with book and pencil to get sketches for my profile drawings and there he was just like the day before as busy as ever catching small insects and flies.
After getting the right shape and size profile drawings of the flycatcher the whittling pattern is placed on the chosen wood which is American Lime. A pencil line is drawn around it and then it is ready to be cut out with a bandsaw to get the profile below.
I take the bird block and draw a line down the center and all the way around the bird this helps you keep both sides the same and stops you taking to much off one side.
I start with the knife whittling small cuts off the bird on all the edges as seen in the photo.
It is important to watch you take equal amounts off all around the bird as you can easly lose the shape at this early stages, the photo below show the flycatcher after two hours whittling.
In the picture below you can see that I have worked with the knife on the head and body of the flycatcher and the bird is starting to take shape we are now 4 hours into the work
After almost 6 hours you can see below more shape to the bird appearing even now if the bird shape is lost I would have to start again.
As you can see with the flycatcher below I have worked on the tail this has been whittled very thin and great care must be taken when working on the rest of the bird.
That's it for now. I do hope you will return to follow the next important stages of this flycatcher. I will update this within the next week or so.
Part 1
Kind Regards
Glyn
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