Art by Barry Kent MacKay
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Art and Photo Presentation

(Artwork - 081)
Elegant Tern
(Thalasseus elegans)

The Elegant Tern world population is believed to be no more than 90,000, and possibly less. They breed along the coast of California and Baja California, and winter further south, along the cost of South America, although they may disperse some distance.

In fact the reason I painted it was to illustrate the cover of a journal featuring an article about a lone bird that showed up on the Niagara River, between Ontario and New York State, last November. I used photos of that bird to carefully render the same winter plumage in my painting, although that bird had a broken outer wing feather, which, using artistic license, I “repaired”.

I kept it simple as it is to be a cover illustration.

I have seen large numbers of these birds in southern California, and always assumed that if I ever were to paint one, I’d do a grouping of them, on the ground, perhaps posed on driftwood and sand or by a tidal pool. However, it seemed more appropriate to show this November bird alone and in flight, as the one who showed up was, flying above the Niagara River.

The painting is approximately life size and was done in acrylics on compressed hardboard.

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