Preying In The Snow

 “I used to put nuts on top of a dry stone wall in winter to attract birds which I could then view from my studio window just a few metres away whilst I worked.
I witnessed many magical moments from that window - a great spotted woodpecker being repeatedly chased away by a robin a tenth of its size, so many elusive long tailed tits appeared at the same time that I couldn’t count them, the wrens, the chaffinches, nuthatches, pheasants, the crows and ravens that would ‘skip’ up to the nuts from the woodland floor behind the wall, take a nut and then hide it in amongst leaves, saving it for later but the most remarkable thing I witnessed was during the first snowfall of winter - a stoat, cute and gorgeous in its white winter coat appeared, its head popping out from the dry stone wall, then disappearing and reappearing in a different spot.
The snow had peaked its curiosity. Then in a what seemed like a very childlike human moment of abandonment, it leapt for joy from the wall to catch snowflakes.
Except what I thought was a very intimate and unguarded moment of joy and excitement was in fact a cold, calculated move by a fearless predator. It wasn’t playing in the snow as I initially thought. It was preying in the snow.

The head popping out from the wall wasn’t curiosity related to the first snowfall, it was checking to see if any birds were eating nuts, using the wall as cover. What seemed to be a joyful leap in the air to catch snowflakes was in fact the planned and calculated leap of one of our most fearless and ingenious predators - the crow, twice the size of the stoat tried to jump and fly out of reach but it had no chance.
My heart was racing. A seemingly joyous moment turned into a massacre in a split second. I felt both privileged and guilty at the same time. Privileged to have witnessed something so remarkable, guilty that I’d unwittingly played a part in the crow’s demise.
That brought an abrupt end to the nuts on the wall. I bought a bird table and cited it in the open instead.
So this painting is unlike a lot of my others, instead of magnifying a quirk or illustrating an imagined scenario, it’s an attempt to share that moment of realisation with you”

Lead Time On All of Angus's Work is Approximately 3 Weeks