An original Irish landscape painting, featuring Brent geese flying over a farmhouse at the North Sloblands, Co. Wexford. The sun is setting as fresh snow lies on the fields below. by

Description

Wexford Wildfowl Reserve is located on flat farmland on the North Slob which was walled off from Wexford Harbour and reclaimed from the sea in the 1840s. My family and I have visited the wild life reserve down there many times where I took the photo this painting is based on. Far from being pristine wilderness, it is the Slobs’ use as farmland that has brought so many birds to feed, breed or winter here. Over 250 bird species have been recorded on the Reserve, many of them Winter migrants from Greenland and Arctic Canada or from Scandinavia and Arctic Russia. I think it’s an amazing place, and the Brent geese who feature in my painting fly in from Canada every year, roughly from about October onwards. I’ve aimed to capture some of the beauty this special place holds, the magic of those Brent geese seen as small silhouettes, making their way across the sky above the crisp, icy snow covered fields.