AK5 Shag

One of a series of small, embroidered studies featuring birds from the British Trust for Ornithology Red list.
The BTO red list currently has 70 birds listed, every bird listed has its story and a key contribution to its own environment.
It would have been really easy to have only featured the pretty and well known birds, but I have chosen 17 that represent hopefully a reasonable cross section.
For example I felt it was important to include a bird like the shag, which in literature, along with its near cousin the cormorant, has been portrayed as a “dark satanic bird from a fiercer, deeper and more dangerous world” from (The Seabirds Cry’ _by Adam Nicholson).
A coastal bird, breeding exclusively around our rocky shores, mostly in the north and west of the country.
It’s long thin bill, peaked forehead and small yellow gape differentiate it from its close relative the cormorant. Shags can be seen in large feeding flocks, when birds at the back of the group will take off and fly to the front, the whole flock moving in this way as they catch the small fish that make up their diet.
In the breeding season, adults develop a dark glossy green plumage and prominent recurved crest on the front of their head. Their name is thought to refer to this shaggy crest.
Shags can dive down to depths of up to 45m to catch fish from near the bottom of the sea. Unlike gannets, they dive from the seas surface.

Framed H 31.5 x W 37.5cm