Two panoramas of the Lleida plains in eastern Catalonia. Unlike my normal way of doing things (see ‘Nature and its Environment’), in this case the photographs are not mine.

The excellent wildlife photographer Jordi Bas, jovial and highly knowledgeable companion of previous professional and publishing adventures, has commissioned a number of panoramas for the Lleida Plains Interpretation Centre. Given the time of year, it was impossible to take fresh photographs for the project and so I ended up using photographs from Jordi’s extensive archive, which had been taken in different places at different times of year, in different lights, without any thought of future projects.

After a lot of work and a serious ‘make-over’, in the end I came up with two panoramas that – if you had no idea of the tricks and time involved in blending together almost a dozen photographs, taken in different places and at different times – you would think were just a single landscape. Obviously, you can’t expect to see the profusion of wildlife illustrated and integrated into the panorama all at once, or in any one place. Nevertheless, it does reflect the biological richness that these non-irrigated croplands in the Lleida Plain harbour, one of the most beautiful landscapes – and one of the most threatened – in Catalonia.

My friend Conor Jameson, British naturalist, conservationist and writer, and author of Silent Spring Revisited (Bloomsbury, 2012), is just finishing writing what promises to be a fascinating book on the Goshawk. It is above all a personal view based on the author’s studies, experiences and observations of this wary, almost phantasmagorical forest raptor.

Since I found out that Conor was writing this book I have been sending him e-mails explaining my experiences with this species. Over the years I have accumulated a number of interesting observations, including an exceptional sighting from a hot-air balloon (the only time I’ve ever been up in a hot-air balloon)! We were flying at low altitude over a pine forest near Fornells de la Selva south of Girona when I was lucky enough to get a bird’s-eye view of a Goshawk pursuing a Green Woodpecker above the pines below the balloon! My other observations are somewhat more mundane, such as the time one took a chicken from our backyard, or surprising, as, for example, when I was able to film with a trail camera a Goshawk with a Kestrel in its talons on the bell-tower of our local church.

In the end, after numerous titillating e-mails to Conor with details of my experiences with the Goshawk, I now have the pleasure of making a small contribution to his book. His publisher’s, Bloomsbury, have asked me to provide the drawings for the chapter headings. What an honour!

The drawings are in pencil style, in black and white, and I have tried to make them as faithful as possible to the content of the chapter they represent and to the author’s needs. Aside from Goshawks and their habitats, I have also had to draw things that go beyond my normal subject matter such as a medal and a grave. But I’ve enjoyed the experience.

Get hold of the book if you can! Stay tuned to know the date of publication!

I’ve painted a fish! And you too can do it!

The campaign Paint a Fish, promoted by a number of European NGOs (New Economics Foundation, Greenpeace, WWF and OCEANA, amongst others), aims to call people’s attention to the need to change European fishery policies. It strikes me as a difficult challenge … but trying won’t do any harm!

The campaign coincides with the final negotiations for the Common Fisheries Policy, which take place every ten years, and is an excellent opportunity to make a decisive contribution to the promotion of sustainable fishery in Europe.

Paint a Fish is also an educational project that uses pedagogical material adapted to different age groups to help teachers and parents alike to tackle the subject of sustainable fisheries at school and at home.

I’ve drawn a tuna fish, as always faithful to (or trapped by?) my naturalistic style, using the tools available at www.paintafish.org. Here you have an example of the illustration process.

If you want to support and enlarge the call for a new, wiser way of managing our seas and fisheries, share the campaign and do Paint a Fish!

Si vols donar suport i fer més gran encara el clam per una nova manera de tractar el mar i els recursos pesquers, comparteix la campanya i pinta un peix!

I have just finished five information boards depicting the natural environments of Els Ports that will decorate the field study centre in the village of Prat del Comte. The work was commissioned by the Natural Park a few months ago and are a good example of how environmental panoramas should be designed with their target audience in mind.

I had already illustrated the Park’s natural environments for my guidebook to this protected area as part of my collection of guides to the flora and fauna. The size of these panoramas, though, was small (11×17 cm), which obliged me to make the animals proportionally much larger so that they could be properly appreciated in the guide. The new batch of redrawn panoramas for the Park are 40×60 cm and all have to be ‘read’ in a different way, more as ‘posters’. They provide more space for adding proportionally smaller elements that are better integrated into the landscape than in the guides, but are still equally visible. I had to redesign the panoramas considerably by returning to the layers of the original document, and then reworking them one-by-one and redoing or adding the animals and elements that were necessary.

The two panoramas in proportion to their original scale. Left, the one originally published in the guide; right, the new poster, 40x60cm.

The same two previous panoramas, shown at the same size: you can spot the differences, with the one on the left showing less, proportionally bigger elements.

…from the Mediterranean and from the next volume of the Handbook of the Mammals of the World. This is a pup of a Mediterranean Monk Seal (Monachus monachus), an animal that has always fascinated me.

At the moment I’m finishing the final illustrations of the sea mammals for the next volume of this encyclopaedia, which include drawings of the pups of all the pinnipeds (seals and sea-lions). Some of the drawings resemble adorable stuffed toys – above all, the Arctic seals – while others are less surprising – such as the elephant seals. However, the most gorgeous of all are the pups of the threatened Mediterranean Monk Seal, delightful with their delicate shiny black skins, white bellies and such tender expressions on their faces!

Some pups from seals, sealions, elephant seal and walrus

Around 10 years ago, a group of naturalist friends and I paddled in kayaks around the islands of the Aegean Sea in search of these seals. This is my field sketch drawn from the top of a cliff of the only seal we saw, off the coast of the island of Kimolos. One of the last such seals…

An adult monk seal swimming on the surface between the islands of Kimolos and Milos, Greece, 2003. Drawn in the company of Ponç Feliu and Pere Renom.