'Avocet and chicks' 10" x 12.5"

Last month I took myself off for a day out to my local National nature reserve Titchfield Haven a few miles down the coast from me.Armed with my camera and binoculars I had hoped to get some nice shots of birds with young on the scrapes.Apart from the plethora of black-headed gulls and noisy youngsters as well as a handful of ducklings and Canada geese goslings the Avocets were the highpoint of the day for me.They are such graceful and beautiful birds that whenever I see them I am thoroughly enchanted so imagine the thrill when I came across a pair of adults and four chicks.The adult birds were naturally very wary with hordes of marauding gulls nearby and so a close watch was made of the youngsters as they foraged on the scrape.eventually as the heat rose in the afternoon the chicks sought shelter under one of the adults and in this drawing,apart from the obvious chicks in the open,there are a further two hidden underneath the adult,the legs of which you can see protruding.