The gallery is OPEN! We will be celebrating the opening of Rookwood, our new wildlife art gallery at Llanunwas, Solva and the publication (finally! – longest gestation period of any book) of African Raptors: a fieldguide by Bill Clark and Rob Davies with a launch event this Tuesday 12th March 2019. Doors open 5pm. All are welcome.
GALLERY
The gallery will be showing the work of other artists and photographers and is designed to be a permanent outlet for artwork celebrating the natural history and wonderful landscapes of Pembrokeshire as well as further afield. Currently Rookwood is blessed with boat and beach scenes by Lia Pellegrini, landscapes and bird paintings by Paul MacDermot and the dramatic underwater photographs captured by marine biologist Dr Lou Luddington who has been helping develop the gallery with Rob. Come and meet the artists and see their work on Tuesday 12th March.
AFRICAN RAPTOR GUIDE
There are 52 colour plates in all featuring all 106 species of diurnal African raptors including Eurasian migrants. Some 1200 figures on these have taken me 20 years to complete. We also did the new range maps based on data in African Raptor Databank from mobile phones all over Africa. Original plates will be on display and copies of the book which is published by Bloomsbury in the Helm Identification Guide Series. Some 300 colour photos too of all those tricky African raptors!
The publication of the African raptor field guide marks the end of a story that began in Africa twenty years ago . Dr Rob Davies who has dedicated much of his life to conservation of wildlife in Africa and Wales set out to illustrate all of the birds of prey in Africa for a fieldguide with friend and co-author American Bill Clark. In Africa you don’t just have a kestrel, a buzzard, a sparrowhawk. There are 15 species of kestrels, 15 species of buzzards, 23 different kinds of hawks. Then there are adults, sub-adults, juveniles. There are males and females. There are pale morphs, dark morphs and rufous. And there are flying hawks and perched hawks. This was a lot of work, some 52 colour plates with 1200 figures featuring all 106 of Africa’s diurnal birds of prey all bound together in a beautiful new book published by Bloomsbury. The original plates for the book, prints and signed copies of the book will be on sale at Rookwood Gallery.
