One of the most awesome things about being a wildlife artist and living in suburban Sydney is the opportunity to connect with wildlife. I feel so blessed that I am able to experience the beauty and wonder of the national park that’s only about a 40- minute bike ride away from where I live.
As I ride uphill and as dawn breaks I take a deep breath in feeling energized and inspired by the pure energy of nature that surrounds me. The echoing sound of a whipbird’s song so crisp and clean uplifts me like a spring clean for my soul while the cool wind brushes against my face and over my arms and legs as I zoom downhill. It makes me feel so alive. Riding on some flat road again and to the side of the road I catch a glimpse of a lyrebirds’ long, soft brown tail feathers. He scratches around the dirt a little and reluctantly pokes his head out from behind a bush and then quickly darts back in again. Lyrebirds are a rare sight as they are such shy creatures.
Riding up another hill I catch a glimpse of what looks like something hopping around with rusty dark brown fur and a long black tail appears from behind a bush. As I take a closer look I see it’s a wallaby. He avoids eye contact and quickly hops further back into the depths and safety of the bush. Even though for just a short moment I feel so energized and blessed for witnessing wildlife in its natural habitat.
On my way home I imagine that I am the leader of a bunch in a bike race. That picture quickly fades as I soon realize I am in the slipstream of a flock of rainbow lorikeets right at the level of my helmet. Now I am really flying! I feel like I am one of them as though my bike has become my wings. All I see is a blur of glorious colour as they flutter their wings in front of me while the high piercing shrill of their call almost deafens me. That soon fades away as they fly up disappearing further into the sky onto a new destination. Now I’m focusing on my cycling again while I keep a mental note of the brilliant colours from those rainbow lorikeets for another drawing.
As I leave the national park and approach the urban environment there are still plenty of wild birds about. I always know if sulphur crested cockatoos have been around as they leave a trail of destruction with torn, tattered twigs and tufts of leaves strewn across the road after their boisterous play at feeding time. His deafening squawk is so loud that it goes straight through me and echoes for miles, yet it makes me feel so glad to be alive. On the other hand, the sweet and gentle flute sound of a magpie leaves me with a feeling of comfort and warmth as she pecks away at someone’s lawn intent on catching a worm for breakfast.
Closer to home and at night a lone tawny frogmouth will visit occasionally, while brush tail and ringtail possums run along the fence or along the branches of trees in our front or backyard. Quite often ringtail possums look as though they are performing a circus-balancing act where from a great height and with great agility and skill they run across telegraph wires. This makes great entertainment for my kids!
With all the wonderful wildlife that’s around me I feel such deep appreciation and respect for all of earths creatures as well as mankind because I believe we are all interconnected. It is through my drawings that I aspire others to see their own essence mirrored by the qualities and strengths of the animals that I draw and hence inspire a deeper connection with all living things as well as with each other.
Regards,
Geri
I feel like I’m constantly looking for interesting things to read about a variety of subjects, but I manage to include your blog among my reads every day because you have honest entries that I look forward to. Here’s hoping there’s a lot more great material coming!
Nice post. I like your blog.
I really like the style of your writing. I found your blog on bing and decided to check out
I feel you are too good to write Genius!Thanks for posting, maybe we can see more on this.
I just wanted to say your site is one of the nicely laid out, most inspirational I’ve come across in quite a while. Thx!
You write very detailed,Pay tribute to you.Couldn’t be written any better. Reading this post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!