If ever there is a bird with a tale to tell its the Cuckoo!
Inspired by Nick Davies book ‘Cuckoo – Cheating by Nature’, the book explores and unravels the complexity of this notorious bird.
Its trickery is truly astounding!
The Cuckoo migrates to our island from Western Africa and is an iconic sound of spring. Unfortunately recent population declines have now seen them placed on the red list and you now consider yourself lucky to hear one anymore.
The RSPB describe the “cuckoo is a dove-sized bird with blue grey upper parts, head and chest with dark barred white under parts. With their sleek body, long tail and pointed wings they are not unlike kestrels or sparrowhawks. Sexes are similar and the young are brown. They are summer visitors and well-known brood parasites, the females laying their eggs in the nests of other birds, especially meadow pipits, dunnocks and reed warblers. Their recent population decline makes this a Red List species”.
Having never seen (only heard) a cuckoo I am very thankful to Jack Barnes for giving me permission to base this piece on his stunning photograph. Jack is a very talented Bird photographer and I really recommend taking a look at his work here.
Above, the bird pieced and paint details added as a stitch guide.
Early selection of possible threads, including King Tut and Oliver Twist.
Having read Nick ‘s book and made notes on the key points I eventually reduced the story down to 31 words – no mean feet as the book was crammed with the most fascinating facts!
I stitched the grid with a walking foot following the iron removable pen outline. The letters were stitched free hand on the machine.
Above, Starting to build up the colours and textures of the feathers with stitch.
Finally it was time to stitch the Cuckoo onto the completed background, adding the final third of the stitch details to the piece.
The Cuckoo’s Tale completed!
This piece is available as a limited edition print in my Art Store here.
Without doubt the most fascinating bird I have researched to date……
‘A Cuckoo’s Tale’
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