Over several months I observed, sketched and photographed this gnarled pollard willow stump which is in a rhyne on the levels near us. A route marker for egret, buzzard, kestrel and heron which I saw perched on or beside the tree.

I was drawn to the cracks in the bark; the man-made saw cuts and cross sections of wood; the shapes of the fungi and the random grasses that grew from cracks. The patterns of the buzzard’s feathers had similarities with that of the bark so that the buzzard extends from the tree in contrast to the smoother white little egret standing in the foreground.

Linocut

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Ref: Watcher in the Willow