Black-legged Kittiwakes
by Barry Kent MacKay
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Price
$2,000
Dimensions
18.000 x 34.000 x 0.250 inches
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Title
Black-legged Kittiwakes
Artist
Barry Kent MacKay
Medium
Painting - Mixed Media
Description
This is an approximately life-size painting showing a tiny section of a breeding colony of Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla). These small, attractive gull species nest on cliffs (and sometimes on ledges of buildings or bridges or piers) along northern coastlines of both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, north up into the arctic. Each winter a few wayward birds, usually young ones, wind up in the lower Great Lakes, but for the most part they are very much marine birds. Unlike many gulls they are not scavengers, but prefer hunting their own food, marine organisms found near or at the surface of the ocean. They make messy nests of seaweed and other plant life, that becomes covered with excrement, which may help sterilize the immediate area and keep the young birds healthy. Adults in breeding plumage are distinctive, with yellow beaks, dark eyes and jet-black wing tips. They have only three toes, lacking the hind toe found in other gulls. There is also, in the far north Pacific, a closely related species called the Red-legged Kittiwake (R. brevirostris) which is similar, but has red, not black, feet. Black-legged Kittiwakes often nest in the company of other seabirds, such as puffins, murres and, on the Atlantic coast, gannets. I have spent a lot of time on the east coast, visiting all the Maritime provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador and coastal Quebec, both on land and at sea, and so this is a familiar sight to me. I first saw kittiwakes when I visited Bonaventure Island, with my mother, in the mid-1960s. The sight of literally tens of thousands of birds swirling about the massive cliffs was mesmerizing. But I like to get up close and personal with my avian subjects and so this painting is from a close point of view. Mixed media on compressed hardboard. Fully framed: 18 X 34 X .25 inches. Price: $2,000, frame included.
Uploaded
March 27th, 2021
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