Birds Portraits Posters and Art Prints

Whiskered Treeswift

Orange-bellied euphonia portrait

A graphite & charcoal portrait artist: Just send me 1- 4 photographs of the subject matter and I will produce either a single or an amalgamation of all 4 photos. Sizes range from A5, A4, A3. Prices from £39.99

Fun little scene of a girl at the portrait gallery with her bird friends looking on. watercolor portraits, birds are made of fabric, collaged together in Photoshop

This is a portrait of a smart owl man in his best clothes. The original was painted in acrylic on board.

Meeting in the woods

Perfectly reflected in the tranquil waters of this pond is this Northern Pintail drake. They may be most commonly seen in West Coast winters, but I've encountered these ducks almost all year round at the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary.

This Princess Parrot found the back of a bench a comfortable place on which to have an afternoon snooze. Barely had the first photograph been snapped when the eyelids of this multi-colored pastel parakeet started getting heavy.

The Tree Swallows who visit Iona Island are intensely curious about humans, and this handsome fellow and accomplished aerialist--like several others of his kind--gave a small but rapt group of photographers plenty of closeup opportunities to capture their breathtaking beauty in dazzling detail.

Face time with a Mountain Bluebird at Boundary Bay Regional Park in Tsawwassen, British Columbia, Canada. Like clockwork, this handsome male showed up almost exactly a year later since the last sighting (of a pair of Mountain Bluebirds) in the same area.

With their long, bright red bills, yellow eyes, and pink feet, Black Oystercatchers are one of the most intriguing looking birds I've had the opportunity of photographing. Usually, they aren't very finicky about the company they keep (human or bird), and can generally be counted upon to deliver a few impressive cameos.

By mid-May 2016, the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary on Westham Island had already hosted 10 fledged Barn Swallows! I can usually find at least a couple of them who like to hang around the Warming Hut, as curious about the photographers behind the long lenses as we are about them. Always a pleasure to make the acquaintance of these colourful and cosmopolitan aerialists!

The golden pheasant or Chinese pheasant is native to the mountain forests of western China. Photo taken at Taronga Zoo, Sydney

It's hard not to be amazed by such beauty! I am so used to seeing Dunlins in flocks of hundreds and thousands in their non-breeding/winter plumage, that to encounter a solitary member of the species is a bit puzzling. S/he was in full breeding regalia, and in no particular hurry to fly north for the summer. We almost missed seeing this peep--so intent on photographing the 20 Greater Scaups much further out from shore--that it was many moments before I realized that this Dunlin was quite calmly "pacing" us some 6-8 feet away on the shoreline! Being under great light and in such close proximity to this beauty enabled me to get a good look at that black belly patch and the wonderful russet brown feathers on its head and back!

Her cobalt blue mascara never runs! Quiet as her mate is noisy, this female Eclectus Parrot surprised me even further by choosing to perch uncharacteristically close to my lens.

A male Wood Duck in all his breeding splendor poses for my lens. Wood Ducks are the most colorful all-year-round resident waterfowl one can find in Metro Vancouver, Canada, and they are equally at home in the water, on land, or in the trees -- being the only duck species who can grasp logs and branches.

The rounder the bird, the cuter it is! This adult songbird was all fluffed up for the sub-zero temperatures that hit Metro Vancouver during the 2018 Great Backyard Bird Count weekend. Taken at the dyke entrance to Boundary Bay Regional Park in Tsawwassen, British Columbia, Canada.

A stunning statement of yellows and blacks, this handsome male Cape May Warbler has captivated photographers and nature lovers with his unexpected presence at Mill Lake Park in Abbotsford, BC. His unusual appearance in the Pacific Northwest is made even more so by the fact that we are barely 3 weeks into winter when this boreal songbird -- who normally winters southward to as far as Mexico -- has chosen, instead, to do so here in Canada. Nevertheless, he has fit right in among the equally vibrant yellow mahonia flowers, from which he sips tasty nectar, eats petals, and feasts on a steady diet of insects and grubs in the same shrubs and nearby trees.

That's no baby -- she's a lady! Looking deceptively like a baby duck, this full grown Bufflehead hen struck the perfect pose for me at one of the inner ponds at the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary. Curious "sentries" like this one will often detach themselves from the flock to satisfy their curiosity about those lenses pointed in their direction. There was just enough afternoon sunlight left to reflect the blue skies in the waters, paint a catchlight in this Bufflehead's eyes, and cast a soft glow on her face.

On a very memorable Boxing Day 2017, a dozen of these enchanting but highly reclusive songbirds were frequenting the trees and vocalizing near the Burnaby Lake Nature House at Piper Spit. None seemed particularly concerned about the presence of photographers, and I daresay some of the subjects even worked the cameras with their pretty poses!

Of the 40 or so Dark-Eyed Juncos who visit the backyard in the fall and winter, there is the odd nonconformist -- in this case, a Cassiar Dark-Eyed Junco -- an intergrade Slate-Colored X Oregon. Slate-Coloreds are common in the east and the Oregons are the "de factos" Juncos out west -- so this hybrid (perched on the pear tree, keeping warm on our first snowy winter day!) was probably the result of a mating between both species where their breeding ranges overlapped. Photographed in South Delta, British Columbia, Canada during the Polar Vortex of 2016.

If the legendary celestial phoenix had an earthly form, it would have to be this creature. Golden Pheasants are showstoppers, wherever you see them. In their natural environment, these shy creatures seek the underbrush in the day and roost high in trees at night. As with most birds in the avian kingdom, the males are the ones who dress to impress, and this uncharacteristically bold fellow is no exception. This is the red gold variant.

Seeing the smallest woodpecker in North America (usually the female) on the backyard suet feeder isn't unusual. Seeing this male (busy whittling wood here) and his female (unseen, but preening herself nearby) on the pear tree just when we got a spot of sunshine over the Great Backyard Bird Count 2017 (Feb 17-20) weekend, was!

I encountered a party of eight juvenile Pectoral Sandpipers at the Boundary Bay Wildlife Management Area as September 2018 passed its halfway mark. Like the other shorebirds who normally prefer the grassier, less muddy parts of the beach to forage from, these medium-sized migratory shorebirds did not mind me in their midst. Photographed on a sunny and slightly breezy afternoon on a fairly low high tide that let me walk out a few hundred feet from shore to observe the visiting fauna in close quarters.

Metro Vancouver's second snowstorm of the winter season finally brought the lovely and much anticipated male Varied Thrush to my backyard, where he spent the greater part of the day excavating the white stuff for tasty grubs. With their dazzling palette of orange, grey, and black hues, this reclusive songbird is a welcome sight during the monochromatic winter months. Photographed in mid-February 2019.

This portrait shows a fine Victorian turkey gentleman in his fines clothes. The original was painted in acrylic on canvas board.

This portrait shows a proud and pompus Victorian cockerell in his sunday best. The original painting is in acrylic on canvas board.

Looking like an overgrown painted cockatiel with tri-colored mascara, this elusive and exotic African native unwittingly gave the photographer (me) an amazing look at the dazzlingly flamboyant colors of its feathers as it bathed in the waterfall, and returned my curiosity with its own on least a few occasions.

In a cute moment highly reminiscent of another bushtit family gathering from 2016, three young songbird fledglings roost together in the sun-dappled shade of the pear tree, while parents and helpers (older siblings) pick grubs and chatter from the leaves nearby. My young subjects were only too willing to oblige for my lens. Photographed in late May 2020.

Parakeet, Colored Parakeet

The sudden appearance of three Bald Eagles--working the waters of Boundary Bay Regional Park--sends thousands of American Wigeons (and the odd Northern Pintail) into the sunny but chilly late November skies.

Fall migration brings thousands and thousands of Snow Geese to the shores of Metro Vancouver every year, and 2017 produced a bumper crop of these migratory birds -- a stunning spectacle to witness. Among the vibrant and calling sea of white that seemed to blanket the high tides from dawn to dusk, outnumbering the usually omnipresent and overwhelming numbers of gulls, crows, and wintering ducks at this time of the year, we also saw 5 rare blue morph Snow Geese. Photographed on a sunny afternoon in October 2017 at Boundary Bay Regional Park, British Columbia, Canada.

An unintentionally vignetted profile of a young Peregrine Falcon, shot through a hole in the fence at the local raptor rehabilitation centre.

Experience the striking beauty of a coconut lorikeet brought to life in vibrant, hyperrealistic oil paint. A mesmerizing piece that captures the essence of nature's palette.

With his bright white cravat evoking a stylish old Elizabethan charm, this handsome bibbed domestic Mallard (of the Duclair designer "persuasion") was definitely the odd duck out at the local wildlife sanctuary. That didn't stop him from charming the photographers in his midst, and moving his way to the forefront of the feeding frenzy that included many, many wild Mallards.

On a surprisingly cold and rainy morning in early July 2016, five young Bushtit brothers huddled on the old plum tree for warmth and comfort. They also unwittingly provided me with a one-in-a-million opportunity to get this family portrait.