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How to build and paint a bird nest

Susan Ogilvy strides out across Somerset with Deon Warner looking for abandoned birds nests to paint

Blackbirds, wrens, reed warblers, yellowhammers, sparrows and crows - this is a programme about British birds and the places where they live.

One day botanical painter Susan Ogilvy found a strange object on her lawn. It was damp and green, and had been blown out of a tree by a storm. Once it had dried it fluffed up into a beautiful chaffinch nest. Susan was entranced and began to paint it.

"Birds follow their own architecture but they use the materials they find around them - twigs and grasses and leaves, and they use them in the spring when they are young and bendy. When we see them in the autumn they've dried up, so everything has become much more brittle."

Over the last five years she's painted another seventy abandoned nests, and she's been increasingly helped by neighbours who find them, plus a local expert, Deon Warner. This programme is as much about Deon as it is about Susan herself. Together they stride out across the local Somerset landscape to see what they can find.

Produced by Miles Warde with readings by Emily Knight.

Available now

24 minutes

Last on

Sat 16 Oct 2021 06:07

Broadcasts

  • Thu 14 Oct 2021 15:00
  • Sat 16 Oct 2021 06:07

Podcast