One year since my first watercolor painting

I just realised that its is just about one year ago that I started to do bird pictures again, after a long break (due to my studies) and also started to try out new techniques like watercolors and acrylics. My first picture last year was a juvenile Whiskered Tern I painted at the 13th of May, it can be seen on my other blog. My newest picture is the on below, showing a Dotterel. It was made for the 30th birthday of a friend who is a birdwatcher himself and especially likes this species.

End of April in Seewinkel/Burgenland

The last days of this month I was working on most days and in my freetime i met with friends and relatives living in the area, so I didn't spend so much time bird watching. Still I could make a very good observation: On my birthday, the 24th of April I just went for a short walk to Geiselsteller/Illmitz with my parents and my sister who had visited me. As we were passing two German bird watchers one of them was whispering to me: there are two male Citrine Wagtails. We could watch them very good, about 15m away from us. Unfortunately, I had neither my foto nor my painting equipment with me so I hoped that the birds would be there the next morning. When I was going there two other Austrian birders already were on their way to the place too and together we searched about half an hour, without finding them. Thus, the other two gave up and went on to visit other bird watching places. I was strolling a bit behind them, looking for some other birds to paint. Then I stopped to talk to one of the Germans birders from yesterday who had just arrived. While I was talking I suddenly noticed a little bird just next too us in the low vegetation: It was one of the two Citrine Wagtails again. Luckily, the two others were still not too far away so we could call them back. The bird came closer and closer, finally it was maybe just 5m away. Taking pictures was difficult as it was mostly partly hidden by plants so after a while I started to paint the bird:

 Other pictures from the last days of April that are worth posting here are a painting of a White Stork in Apetlon, and fotos from shorebirds at Geiselsteller/Illmitz: