Komorebi

I love the way sunlight dapples the leaves of trees in the summertime. I found out that there is a Japanese word to describe it, Komorebi (pronounced kō-mō- leh-bē) Literally, "sunlight leaking through trees," this word describes the beauty and wonder of rays of light dappling through overhead leaves, casting dancing shadows on the forest floor.

Komorebi is composed of several parts of the word: "Ko" means tree or trees.

This is my Komorebi happening on the paper with pencil.

What is special about Bumblebees?

There are important pollinators of wild flowering plants and crops. As generalist foragers, they do not depend on any one flower type. However, some plants do rely on bumblebees to achieve pollination. Loss of bumblebees can have far ranging ecological impacts due to their role as pollinators.

Bumblebees harvest nectar and pollen from flowering plants. They live in smaller groups than honey bees and do not tend to swarm.

Bumblebees hibernate underground. They scent mark flowers they have visited. Bumblebees will not die if they use their sting, whereas honey bees will.

Bearded reedling (Panurus biarmicus)

Bearded reedling (Panurus biarmicus) is my latest commissioned bird illustration.

I worked with: ink pens (Pigma micron, Pigma sacura, Uni pin), watercolours (Winson & Newton) and coloured pencils (Faber-Castell) on a 300g/m2 watercolour paper (Canson).

You can see some other sketches I did before the final version on my Instagram

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Bearded tits are sandy brown with long tails, yellow bills and eyes. It is frequently known as the bearded tit, due to some similarities to the long-tailed tit, or the bearded parrotbill. The males have grey heads with a conspicuous black ‘moustache’ that flanks the throat. Females are duller and lack the moustache. They are sociable and noisy, their 'ping' calls often being the first clue to their presence. Bearded tits survive in the reedbeds all year round by changing their diet from insects during the spring and summer, to seeds in the autumn and winter. Bearded reedling, or bearded tit, is a stout bird found across Europe. Living in wetlands, they're experts at balancing on the thin reeds that sprout from marshes and perform incredible splits to keep themselves balanced. They cope with this by altering their gut morphology, and by eating large amounts of grit particles that help to grind down the tough seed fibres.

I saw Bearded tit for the first time, and only, in a La Cañada de los Pájaros which was born in 1987 when the lovely people who I had chance to chat with bought a piece of land full of garbage and completely worthless. It was the very first private experience in Spain of restoration and management of gravel sites. During these 20 years they converted a rubbish dump into a wetland, which is included in The Natural Space Network of Andalucía and maintains very big biodiversity.

The number of wintering and nesting birds every year this place receives is incredibly impressive.