One day, while clearing up the garden after a storm, I found a chaffinch nest – it was a strange, sodden lump on the grass under a fir tree, and I wasn’t even sure what it was. I brought it inside, placed it on a newspaper and over the next few hours, as the weight of water drained out of it, the sodden lump blossomed into a jewel-like nest. I was enthralled, and dropped everything to paint it.
This was the start of a fascination with nests. Until I found this perfect object, I’d not realised how diverse nest building is, nor the skill with which they are built. Each species has its own method, favouring certain materials – twigs, roots, grasses, leaves, moss, lichen, hair, feathers and cobwebs –…
