Hoopoe – A blog by nhbs

What first inspired you to begin painting wildlife?

I have always been interested in the countryside. As a young boy I was always out in the woods and fields, watching wildlife, climbing trees or building dams across streams. As far back as I can remember I always liked to draw and paint, the two just naturally seemed to merge. I like to think I started like everyone else by colouring in, and just carried on.

How would you describe your style as it features in The Winter Hare?

I seem to have developed several different styles or ways of producing pictures, I think they have come about because I get bored easily and want to try new things. Also I am never really happy with my work, I tend to see all the things that are wrong rather than right and this makes me move on. The book shows most of the ways I work, from linocuts which are hand-coloured to drawings, watercolours and oil paintings.

Could you briefly tell the story behind this book and how it came about?

Several people have been encouraging me to do a book for several years now. I have always liked the idea but put it on the back burner… When my dog found and brought home some orphaned leverets, which I reared to adulthood, it gave me the theme around which I could build the book. The young hares were only orphaned because of my dog! I think she was trying to mother them – when they arrived on the kitchen floor one Sunday morning they were quite wet from several good licks.  Because I had no idea where she had found them I was faced with the problem of looking after them. This proved quite eventful and took up much of my time over the following months but did give me the unique opportunity of drawing them at close quarters.

In the course of running The Wildlife Art Gallery I have designed books for other people but putting one together of my own work gave me fresh problems. In the past I just worked with the material I had available but with this book I was able to paint new pictures to fit a particular spaces which slowed things up considerably.

Hares, tortoises, dogs and cats, and many different birds, including a kingfisher and a green woodpecker – feature in this book.  Are there any pictures of which you are particularly proud?

I like to paint animals that are around me and sometimes that includes domestic animals or pets. As for pictures I am proud of I guess it would be the next one I am about to paint – it is always perfect until I start putting marks on the paper.

Your paintings are full of character and intimacy – how did you get the animals to sit still for so long?!

I always try to paint or draw the individual animal rather than to just produce the standard version of it. With the hares I was in an ideal position to do this as they were around me all the time allowing me every opportunity to capture them. Getting animals to sit still is always a problem – I think the secret is not to try and to just start drawing. If the animal moves before your sketch is complete then turn the page and move on. A half-completed drawing is better than one you have tried to complete from memory if you are unfamiliar with the animal.

Hares have such an important place in English folklore. Were you conscious of this during the process of raising the orphans, or was the experience rather more prosaic?

I have always been interested in hares, including all the folklore that surrounds them. At one time the idea for the book was revolving around this. In the end it never came about, but it may form the basis for another book in the future.

What were some of the highlights of the experience? Any funny stories?

Rearing the hares was not always easy and they caused a lot of disruption to my life, but it was certainly a privilege. I don’t think there are many people who can say they have been boxed by a hare.  On several occasions I would be drawing one of them and he would jump onto my drawing pad and chew the end of my pencil.

You founded the Wildlife Art Gallery in Lavenham, Suffolk – what could people expect to see there?

The gallery was first opened in 1988 to show the work of contemporary wildlife artists. From the start the gallery seemed to take on a life of its own and over the last 22 years we have staged some exceptional exhibitions. During that time the type of work we show has evolved and if people visit the gallery today they will find a cross section of artists both past and present; painters, printmakers and sculptors working in the field of wildlife art or countryside-related subjects.

Who are your heroes in the wildlife art world?

‘Heroes’ is probably the wrong description because in most cases it is the work they produce which I admire. Many, like R. B. Talbot Kelly and Eric Ennion (Eric Ennion: One Man’s Birds; Eric Ennion: A Life of Birds), are no longer with us. I never had the opportunity to meet them so all I have is their work to look at and be inspired by. There are two living artists who have made an impact on how I look at painting. The first was back in the mid 80’s when I went to an exhibition of watercolours by Lars Jonsson. The second was Kim Atkinson who ran a painting holiday on Bardsley Island in which I took part in the early 90’s. In addition there are several members of the Society of Wildlife Artists to whom I have enjoyed talking, and whose work I enjoy.

I am also influenced by individual pictures and I particularly like work by book illustrators and printmakers from the first half of the 20th Century.

How do you feel about the current state of wildlife in Britain today, and what can people do to help?

I think the best way to help is to protect and increase habitat. I have tried at home in a small way to plan the garden with wildlife in mind, with areas left to go wild, and by planting trees and digging ponds.

Buy The Winter Hare now.

Visit the Wildlife Art Gallery website.

We asked Hugh Raffles, author of Insectopedia, to give us a glimpse into the intriguing  subject matter of his new book. Here’s what he had to say:

What inspired you to write about insects?

Insects are fascinating. They exist in vast numbers and extraordinary diversity, and they’re ecologically and economically vital. They elicit intense and intensely ambivalent feelings from us – do they think? Do they feel? We’re not sure. Yet, as Elias Canetti put it, they’re “outlaws” and we kill them not just with impunity but, often, satisfaction. They’re mysterious, powerful, and our relations with them are very complicated. I find that a pretty inspiring combination.

What is your earliest insect memory?

When I was little, we used to go to Norfolk for a few weeks every summer. My mum would put a jam jar part-filled with water on our kitchen windowsill. Attracted by the jam, the wasps would land on the rim and fall into the trap. I’d watch for hours, fascinated but immobilized – too scared to rescue them but horrified by their struggles. I’m sure I had happier insect encounters, but that’s the one that’s stayed with me all these years!

Tell me about ‘mushi-eyes’ and ‘konchu-shonen’ – do you now have them, and are you one?

‘Konchu-shonen’ (insect-boy) and ‘mushi (insect)-eyes’ are terms I learned in Japan while researching the chapter on Japanese beetle collecting. I was fascinated to discover that so many celebrated Japanese artistic figures, including pioneers of anime and manga such as Tezuka Osamu and Hayao Miyazaki, had been obsessive insect-lovers as children. Once you know that, you see it clearly reflected in their work. Yoro Takeshi, a well-known neuroanatomist and popular writer in Japan, was also a ‘konchu-shonen.’ He told me that spending time with insects gives you ‘insect-eyes’ – an enhanced sensitivity to small differences, to the individuality of plants, animals, and people, and to the existence of multiple, intersecting worlds. I came to a love of insects pretty late in life but like to think I developed a little mushi-vision over the course of writing this book.

The chapters in Insectopedia are as much about people as they are about insects. Do you draw any parallels?

I’m wary of drawing these kinds of parallels. It’s too easy to project our dreams and ideologies onto animals and find the lessons that suit our purpose. I’m an anthropologist, not an entomologist and I like to explore the worlds that humans and insects create together in our entwined lives on this planet. There’s a lot to learn about both people and insects from looking closely at these connections. One of the things I’ve loved about writing this book has been meeting people who are deeply connected to insects, maybe as artists, musicians, farmers, scientists, or collectors, and learning about insects through their experience. That’s been very inspiring.

Which is your favourite story from the book?

My favorite fieldwork was in Shanghai, meeting people who trained crickets to fight and going to the casino to watch the battles. My favorite story though is about Yajima Minoru, a prominent and innovative designer of Japanese insect zoos. Mr. Minoru was present during the bombing of Tokyo in 1945. As we know, the destruction was immense, more people were killed in the raids and the firestorm they generated than in the nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mr. Minoru describes wandering dazed through the smouldering city among the traumatized population, in deep shock and despair. Then, in a crater, half-filled with water, he sees a dragonfly perched on a floating twig, laying her eggs. He takes it as a sign of rebirth amidst the rubble. The sight of this insect tells him that there’s a possibility of overcoming the nightmare and that there’s still a future to live for. This was a dramatic and moving story, but it wasn’t unusual to meet people who found in insects similar emotional strength and also refuge from difficult personal experiences.

If you could be an insect for a day, which would you be?

One of the 24-hour adult mayflies. I could live my entire life in the time allotted!

You obviously have a great love of diversity – have you always been a collector of specimens?

I do love the diversity of insects but I’m not actually a collector of specimens. I have a low-level kleptomania that makes it hard for me not to pick up stones, shells, dead insects, and other little things, and I have a desk cluttered up with that kind of stuff. But I’m not attracted to the killing and manipulation that’s involved in collecting. And, in fact, I’m not really attracted to collections. As I say somewhere in the book, they remind me of mausoleums – the transformation of living beings into aestheticized objects makes me a bit uneasy.

I was speaking metaphorically. The book is like a cabinet of curiosities and your interests so far-reaching…

Oh, that kind of collector! Yes, I do have some of that early modern curiosity. Happily, insects are everywhere and I had a lot of fun following them into unexpected and obscure places, and along the way learning about all kinds of topics about which I knew very little.

Does Insectopedia have an overall message?

It may sound clichéd, but I think of the book as a journey. It’s an exploration into our deep and varied connections with one part of the natural world. More than anything, I hope it creates reflection and helps people look at insects with slightly different eyes and slightly different feelings. If there is a message, it’s one that we already know: We’re all in this together!

What are your favourite natural history books?

I have a fondness for 19th-century naturalists which I developed when I was writing my first book, In Amazonia: A Natural History. I especially like Henry Walter Bates’ A Naturalist on the River Amazons and Alfred Russel Wallace’s Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro. Both books offer such a strong sense of first-hand experience and the unfolding struggle to understand the totality of a world so different from the one these two men left behind in England.

Who are your heroes in your field?

I hope this doesn’t sound arrogant but I don’t have heroes. However, I’ve come away from this book full of admiration for many of the people I spent time with. One of them is Cornelia Hesse-Honegger, a Swiss artist who, for more than 30 years, has been painting tiny insects she’s collected close to nuclear power plants around the world and is convinced that the high incidences of deformities she’s found are the result of low-level radiation. Her paintings are beautiful and disturbing and her discoveries should make us hesitate in the current rush to embrace nuclear power as a “green” energy source.

If you could spend a month working in another field, which would you choose?

I’d have to say marine biology. It’s always been my fantasy to spend time in the deep ocean. It might be the only landscape on this planet even more alien than the land of insects!

What will you be working on next?

I’m starting research on a book about rocks and stones. It’s a big project and I’m looking forward to getting going. Last summer I began some fieldwork in China and in a few weeks I’ll be going to the UK to visit a few megalithic sites. I’m very excited about it!

Buy Insectopedia now.

Visit Hugh Raffles’ Insectopedia site.

Norman Maclean, editor of the best-selling Silent Summer, talks to NHBS about his career, early home-grown experiments with nature conservation and the state of wildlife policy in Britain today.

What first inspired you to pursue your field of study, and how old were you?

I have been interested in wildlife since my earliest years (aged 6), being brought up amongst fields and farms on the outskirts of Edinburgh. I was equally interested in insects, birds, mammals and fish. My parents were very tolerant of my rearing caterpillars, beetles, field mice and newts at home, mostly in my bedroom.

What were the books that inspired you when you were young?

The books of Richard and Cherry Kearton on Nature Photography in St. Kilda and elsewhere.

“Direct From Nature: The Photographic Work of Richard and Cherry Kearton” by John Bevis.

Later, “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson.

What is your all time favourite natural history book?

Gilbert White’s “Natural History of Selborne”.

Who are your heroes in the field?

Gilbert White, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, David Attenborough.

How do you split your time between the field and your writing projects?

You might call me a polymath. Academically, I am Professor in Molecular Genetics, but I have strong hobby interests in wildlife, trout fishing, playing tennis, gardening, antiquities and travel.

How has your core understanding of the subject changed since you began your research?

Enormously. As a geneticist I have lived through 50 years of amazing discovery and change. In terms of wildlife, ecology and conservation I have always been a keen field biologist and have taught on student field courses in Southern Spain for over 20 years. I have also been witness to the alarming decline in insects and some birds and mammals. I have studied wildlife in over 50 countries worldwide, seeing the destruction of so much natural habitat, yet savouring the riches of what is left.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?

My main research topic is gene regulation, and I and my research group have made some signicant discoveries in this area. Maybe my proudest moment in youth was discovering the first breeding of the Golden Plusia moth in Scotland when I was twelve – confirmed by letter from the Edinburgh Museum of Natural History.

What do you consider to be the most interesting current developments in your field of study?

In genetics the sequencing of the genomes of many species including humans, and in conservation biology the return to the UK of breeding cranes, red kites, otters, pine martens and others.

Which current issues in conservation do you feel have the biggest impact on your field, and how would like to see these dealt with?

The realization that you cannot effectively conserve wildlife in the UK by making fences round reserves and letting nature take its course.  Ecologically speaking, almost all of Britain and Ireland has been moulded by human interference and activity so our future responsibility lies in the active management of wildlife, including judicious culling where necessary.

How would you like to see your field develop in the future?

With increased political prioritization of wildlife conservation and the preservation of what remains of the countryside. We must urgently control further human population increase and resist further demands on space, water supplies, energy supplies and contributions to global warming. We should all be prepared to reduce our own standards of living in order to improve those of the other species with which we share the planet.

Where will you be taking your next study trip?

Ethiopia.

What will your next book be?

I don’t know. Any ideas welcome!

If you could spend a month working in another field, which would you choose?

Ancient History.

How would you encourage young people who might be interested in pursuing a career in your field?

Get a degree in biology or genetics at a reputable university and learn your own fauna and flora.

Get your copy of Silent Summer today