Painting the Bird Hide at College Lake

I have started refurbishing the bird hide now - I chose The Tump - it's very well camouflaged from outside, but hopefully there will be a surprise inside.

I'm busy painting the walls first - a warm grey - then the plan is to draw/paint markings of the species of birds, butterflies and dragonflies that are seen at the lake. In my mind's eye these markings - just the ones that are visible in UV light - will form a kind of delicate web.

Then when the sun shines (if ever!) the prismatic film at the windows will highlght the markings in full rainbow colour. Well that's the idea anyway...

Here are a few photos of the hide, the long walk I take to reach it, working on the inside...

Prismatic Effects - Our field of vision

I've been thinking again about the difference between human vision and that of birds/insects. Our visible spectrum comprises the rainbow colours as shown here. These photos were taken of a very small holographic diffraction grating film - when it is placed in direct sunlight the white light is split into its constituent parts. Birds are tetrachromats and so can see ultraviolet in addition to these colours. Snakes see infrared. If we could only see what the animals see these images would appear very different.

This light installation is by Peter Erskine - he achieved this amazing prismatic light effect by using heliostats and prismatic film. I've been thinking that I could use a prismatic film to coat the windows on one of the hides - the rainbow display is only visible in the shadows of the interior - all that is needed is sunlight! The heliostat is used to track the sun - I'd have to make do without that.