Ruby

Greetings Card (FSC Board)
Size: 148mm X 148mm
Card blank inside
Free P + P

Original Painting Medium: Pastel
Scientific Name: Ara chloroptera
Region: South America

Macaws are large, colourful parrots that inhabit the rainforests of tropical America.

In 1989, while living at my home and studio in the grounds of the Larmer Tree Victorian Gardens, Tollard Royal, I was asked if I would look after the exotic birds. The collection included peacocks, golden, silver, reeves, and blue-eared pheasants and six macaws: one of them being Ruby.

I dislike the fact that people keep birds in cages, but as the birds at Larmer Tree were allowed to fly freely and were in need of someone to care for them, I donned my ‘bird-keepers hat’.

At that time, I was unaware one could develop a relationship with a bird and was amazed at how clever and inquisitive the macaws were. We came to know and trust each other well, and to this day I still have a lovely relationship with them all…..Ruby being the exception. She was always fiercely independent and I fear she may have been badly treated in her earlier years when captured as part of the pet trade. She was such a stunningly colourful bird that I wished to portray her beauty and character in my pastel portrait.

The pet trade kills more birds than it sells and I feel strongly that the birds are better off where they belong – in the wild.