'Charlie'

Acrylic on paper

Here you can see a couple of stages of this painting, showing a recent commission of a King Charles Spaniel dog on his favourite bench.


Please email me for further details of pet paintigns and portraits.

Plate 70 - Natricidae


Plate 69 - Natricidae


Plate 68 - Natricidae


Plate 67 - Natricidae

A fieldguide to the reptiles of South East Asia (Indraneil Das)
New Holland Publishers
Due Septmeber 2010


I have recently recieved 12 orginal artowrks back from the publishers, which I produced for the above fieldguide. They are all now available for sale, and include identification plates of the following groups of snakes:

Cylindrophiidae, Elaphidae, Homalopsidae and Natricidae.

All the plates are approximately A3 in size (which includes a border for framing), and are priced at £250 plus £4.50 p&p (UK). For overseas postage rates, please contact me for a quote)

Please email me at Jonathan.Latimer@talktalk.net if you are interested in purchasing any of the following plates. If you would like to see a larger version of any of the plates, please don't hesitate to contact me.



Plate 59 (Cylindrophiidae & Elapidae)

Plate 66 - Homalopsidae



Plate 65 - Homalopsidae


Plate 64 Elaphidae (Sea Kraits)


Plate 63 Elaphidae (Sea Kraits)
NB - This plate is not for sale

Plate 62 Elaphidae (Sea Kraits)


Plate 61 Elaphidae (Cobras)


Plate 60 Elaphidae (Calliophis group)

Lune Valley, June 2010

A beautiful evening, with hawthorn in blossom and calling curlew and oystercatcher over the fields.

Other birds that have taken up residence in some of Paul's nestboxes include Great tits and blue tits (middle and bottom photos respectively) - young birds having been ringed, in the hand before being returned to their nestboxes.

Pied flycatchers

I spent an evening last week with Paul Cammack, a birder from Lancashire who has been ringing birds for over 20 years. During the summer months he spends much of his spare time studying pied flycathers in the Lune Valley, which, thanks to his efforts and those of other birders in the region, are doing really well in this part of Lancashire.

Interestingly, there was a feature on the BBC North West tonight programme yesterday evening about the pied flycatchers in the Lune valley, at another wood along the valley. John Wilson, part of the North Lancashire ringing group, (and the former RSPB reserve manager at Leighton Moss), was explaining to Diane Oxberry that there are now about 60 pairs in the Lune Valley, a massive rise from just a single pair some 40 years ago.



Bluebell oak wood, Lune valley


Two young pied flycatchers in my hand


The complete brood, above

Barn owls and Roe deer

I spent a couple of hours very early yesterday morning visiting a local site where I had been able to watch Barn Owls hunting during the winter, thanks to a tip off from local wildlife photographer Brian Rafferty - http://www.brianraffertywildlifephotography.blogspot.com

It was the first time I'd visited the site for several weeks, so ti was great to find one of the adult birds roosting in a tree next to his favourite hunting field as soon as I arrived - see photos below. The bird spent most of the time sleeping, but I was able to watch it hunt for about 10 minutes or so around 6am.

In addition to the owl, many other local birds were active including a family party of long tailed tits, reed buntings, goldfinches, whitethroat, a couple of shelduck. I also heard yellowhammer, my first cuckoo of the spring, and a sinlge corn bunting.

Best of all were 2 roe deer which I disturbed. They bolted across the fields, but I was later able to find one animal (not sure if it was another individual or not), browsing along the hedgerow.

Peregrine Falcon Paintings - June 2010

These are a few more sketches from the peregrine site I have been wardening at over the last few weeks. I'm hoping to build some of these studies up into more finished paintings soon - the colour sketch below shows one of the bird's favourite perches, so it may well form the basis of one such study.

My visit this week was the first time I'd visted the site since the 2 chicks hatched, and although the nest scrape is not visible due to it being in a slight hollow on a rocky ledge, the fluffy white heads of the chicks were visible on occasion as they were being fed by both parents.

With the chicks having hatched, the adult birds were easier to study, since they spend most of the time away from the nest scrape and were visible feeding, preening or dozing on the cliff face for most of the time. The female bird was especially vocal during my visit, and I tried (in the bottom page of sketches) to capture her open beak as she called repeatedly to the male.