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Message: <blockquote data-quote="deborah4" data-source="post: 1523947" data-attributes="member: 29880">(have sent you a PM mcspudd - many thanks for all your comments - yes Woody, loads of stuff in the sketchbook should I ever decide to actually do a proper painting!)IBISThese are iconic birds for me in so many ways.  Some years ago my Father brought me back a large Victorian print from Egypt dipicting a Sacred White Ibis and Black Ibis.  I struggled (in vain!) to produce a decent painting from a rough sketch of a Glossy Ibis I found in Sussex a few years back with the intent of giving it to my father for his birthday before he died (he ended up with a water- colour of a Blackbird instead).   A few days prior to going to Greece, I finally got the Egyptian print framed and placed it on the mantle piece in my bedroom, rescued from where it had been sadly rolled up in a cardboard container ever since it had come into my possession four years ago.   It was something special therefore to be able to locate a fairly elusive breeding population of Glossy Ibis very close to where I was staying in Greece.  I was spoilt with some excellent views of some 30+ individuals in this particular area.   Why are they so special to me?  I don't know ... maybe the history of Dad's interest in ancient Egypt, maybe because of the first Glossy Ibis I'd found in Sussex for over 25yrs, maybe because I've been following the trials and fortunes of the population of Northern Bald Ibis hanging on by a thread in Syria since they were discovered ... maybe all of that ... and well ... aesthetically they just do it for me, perhaps that's a lot to do with how in a just a fall of light, rusty blacks turn to viridian hues revealing a powerful ancient form under that mass of iridescence... but it's so hard to do them justice all I managed was a few impressions and one decent photo:</blockquote>

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