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My name’s Claire, I’m Head Keeper at this illustrated wildlife park!

My blog is all about conservation and endangered animals - each month I focus on a different theme and write a whole bunch of posts, such as topic overviews, project tutorials and things I've made. You can see all the previous months' themes under the Post Categories header to the right of my blog. If you want to buy from my shop, just click on the relevant tab at the top!

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Walk for Wildlife – and writing to your MP!

10th October 2018 in _news, _travels and adventures, Heroes of wildlife conservation by claire

On 22nd September we went up to London for the People’s Walk for Wildlife – organised by Chris Packham, the march included a load of his wildlife friends as well as 10,000 ordinary people who care about wildlife. It was a rather grey, wet day but the mood was optimistic and as with all coming-together events, solidarity and a common cause is more than enough. I’d made myself a banner the day before, which I was mightily embarrassed to get out (turns out my grand vision of what to decorate it with was rather hard to pull off with cheap paint on cheap cotton fabric!) but I was glad I’d made the effort.

(By the way, please keep reading or scroll down for the important bit – writing to your MP!)

The event started with an hour or so of short speeches by some of the people Chris Packham had designated his ‘Ministers’ – each Minister was the spokesperson for a different topic, such as farming, education, culture, hunting and diversity. The speeches were really varied and short, giving a great overview of the complexity in caring for our environment. As well as experts and conservationists with years of experience, there were a good number of young voices, speaking for the next generation. The last speech by 15 year old Bella Lack pretty much reduced the crowd to tears. We then set off to march to Downing Street (the rain temporarily stopped, much appreciated) through the streets of London, and it was at this point we could really see how many people were marching, we couldn’t see the front or back of the crowd! At Downing Street, we had a few more speeches (including an impassioned one from George Monbiot, hero) then Chris and a few others delivered the Manifesto to No. 10.

If you haven’t had a look for yourself yet, please do read the People’s Manifesto for Wildlife on Chris Packham’s website. Its quite a read, but its broken up into really short, neat sections with tonnes of specific actions that we as individuals can take or lobby government and corporations to take action on.

Oh, and final claim to fame – our faces and my terrible homemade banner were the summary feature of the march in The Guardian’s Week in Wildlife. Haha!

WRITE TO YOUR MP!
This is the bit that can make a difference – putting pressure on government to sit up and take notice. Its super easy to write to your local MP, heres how:

1. Find out the name and email address of your local MP here (follow the link)

2. Write your email – this is the first time I’ve done this so I did look up a bit of advice (see also Mark Avery’s letter). General advice seems to be:
* Be clear and specific in what you are asking your MP to do, they get a lot of emails! Get straight to the point too.
* Make it personal to you and your area (they are your local MP after all), be passionate
* Clear links to relevant science or evidence, if relevant
* It doesn’t hurt to mention elections and how you might vote, apparently thats what they care about mostly
* Include your address somewhere so they know you are in their constituency

3. Send email, and maybe get a reply… or maybe not! (I still haven’t heard anything from mine…)

Here is the email I sent to my MP, in case it helps give you some encouragement or ideas of what to write. PLEASE WRITE, IT WOULD MAKE SUCH A DIFFERENCE IF WE ALL DID IT!

Dear Gillian Keegan MP,

On Saturday 22nd September we joined 10,000 other people on the rainy streets of London for the Peoples Walk for Wildlife, to give nature a voice. It was an incredible day, full of impassioned, hard-working scientists, conservationists, famers and young people who are already working to try and ensure our natural environment is in a better state tomorrow than it is today.

Sadly there were no Conservative MPs present at the walk, and it was a huge disappointment that Michael Gove decided last minute he was unable to meet Chris Packham to discuss the issues. Therefore I am writing to urge you to read the Peoples Manifesto for Wildlife document which was produced to support the walk, and which hopefully by now you will have received a copy of. You can view it online here: http://www.chrispackham.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Peoples-Manifesto-Download.pdf

Two areas are particularly important to me:

1. Farming – I live in an area surrounded by large-scale farming, but the current system is trashing our countryside and making a mockery of any small scale conservation efforts. Wildlife shouldn’t just thrive in nature reserves, it should be everywhere. We need to support farmers and reward them for encouraging wildlife – which in turn controls pests, prevents flooding, improves soil fertility, enables pollination… the list is endless. Please do read the section on farming.

2. Nature in the national curriculum – It just must be included in Section 78 of the Education Act, there is simply no excuse, we must engage our future generations with the natural world. We are not separate from nature, it is not a luxury for the few – we are part of the natural environment, and learning about it in all its forms and the services it does for us is so essential for our future.

So I urge you to give the Manifesto some of your time. The Conservative Party’s election manifesto was incredibly weak on wildlife and nature conservation in 2017 – you need to take on board some of these ideas if you are to deserve greater public support, especially with so much political turmoil and change on the horizon. I was very disappointed to see no Conservative MPs at the Walk for Wildlife, and so would be keen to hear your thoughts on the areas where you think we can take action.

Yours sincerely,

Claire Munday
MY ADDRESS

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Illustrated panels at the Booth Museum

6th April 2018 in _news by claire

Well this year has started with a bang – I have created some large illustrated panels at the Booth Museum of Natural History, to showcase some of our most endangered animals and the habitats they live in.

At the end of last year, the lovely people at the Booth Museum in Brighton (where I also volunteer, see various posts below) asked if I would like to illustrate 3 long panels to go up in their Discovery Gallery for young children. Having never illustrated at anywhere near this scale before (the biggest panel was nearly 8 metres long!) and with the chance to get really stuck in to doing a tonne of drawing, I excitedly said yes!

Beetle Cherry illustrated panels in Discovery Gallery at the Booth Museum of Natural History (Brighton)

The focus of the panels is endangered species, with a different landscape on each – rainforest, ocean and mountain. The panels are less than a metre tall off the floor, with the target audience being small children, so we wanted to keep it fun and colourful with loads of secondary creatures to spot and talk about. Where relevant we also included information about wider conservation issues, such as plastics in our oceans and palm oil causing deforestation.

Due to the ENORMOUS scale, I created the artworks a little differently to how I would normally work. I started with some very rough sketches, animal research and notes into a sketchbook. To get an idea of scale and how big to draw all the creatures, I also did a few rough drawings to scale on large sheets of paper in the gallery.

Research notes and sketches

Using my sketches and to-scale drawings as a I guide, I then created all the artwork straight onto my computer using a graphics tablet and Photoshop. Once everything was finished and the text was added, it was sent off to be printed on huge vinyl stickers and then very expertly installed without any creases or wonky edges or anything (this seemed like the trickiest job of the entire thing!).

Vinyl panels waiting to be installed onto the walls

Here are a few photos of the panels in place at the museum:

Rainforest panel – intro and Philippine eagle

Rainforest panel – orangutans and pangolin

Rainforest panel – end section with the palm oil plantation (sob)

Rainforest panel – section with two windows featuring leopard and pangolin

Mountain panel – featuring moon bear and rusty patched bumblebee

Ocean panel – featuring north atlantic right whale and a swarm of jellyfish

Ocean panel – coral reed with kemps ridley turtle

I’d love to know what you think of the panels if you’ve visited! And let me know how long it takes you to find the stick insect too 🙂

Photos all taken by the brilliant Kate of Oh Someday, who overcame the challenges of curved panels and low lighting like a total pro.

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Volunteering at the Booth Museum – BEETLES!

2nd June 2017 in Museums by claire

I’m still regularly going to the Booth Museum to help out with cataloguing their bird egg collection, but while I’m there I always get a chance to open a couple of drawers in another cabinet or delve into a different part of the collection. Its literally impossible not to, theres so many amazing things to look at everywhere!

So here are a few photos from a recent drawer-opening few minutes in the beetle collection:

Also, from the other week how AMAZING is this Great Hornbill skull?!?

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Brighton Artists Open Houses – Junkyard Dogs

17th May 2017 in _craft markets, _news by claire

I’m absolutely thrilled to be exhibiting at the wonderful Junkyard Dogs cafe and event space in Brighton with the Brighton Etsy Team this May.

I created a new ocean print for the exhibition, which went up on the walls alongside a few older pieces and a whole wonderful array of work by other Etsy sellers. We also had racks selling prints and cards, and it seems to have been very busy, I’ve restocked a couple of times already!

Do get down for a little look around if you, stop for tea and cake or even attend one of the many events they are holding in their new venue space.

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Volunteering at the Booth Museum – EGGS!

12th November 2016 in Museums by claire

A few weeks ago, myself and Sarah (from Sarah Edmunds illustration) started volunteering at the Booth Museum of Natural History in Brighton to help photograph and update the collection of birds eggs. I don’t think either of us had quite realised the enormity of the task until we started… there are SO MANY eggs in the collection, its really quite incredible. And such an amazing opportunity to get close-up to these beautiful natural objects.

I could of kept taking literally hundreds of photos, there is something so beautiful and haunting about them. Here are just a few…

The birds eggs are kept in hundreds of drawers in a whole corridor of cabinets like this:

Our main tasks were to measure the length and width of the eggs using really precise callipers, and enter the information onto the giant museum database. We also checked all the information on there was correct for each egg. Then we photographed each egg on its own and as a clutch if it was part of one, which will later be added to the database too.

(Please note egg collecting is illegal in the UK – the eggs in the collection are all from a long time ago when collecting was quite common. The eggs are now used for research and education).

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@BeetleCherry

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@AmySparkes @sandradelaprada @EditorEmma @stephmilton @StudioBooks @IcklePickles This was such a wonderful project to be part of 💛

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8:05 pm · 12th October 2020
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Beautiful 💚 twitter.com/ChrisGPackham/…

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8:45 am · 3rd March 2020
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A morning at the computer designing logos and leaflets, followed by some sunshine and tree stroking with my little bee. Veg lasagne is next on the agenda, I love it when a Sunday comes together like this 💚 ift.tt/2Pf9LL1 pic.twitter.com/PZhK37gAf0

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3:42 pm · 23rd February 2020
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A #shelfie of some books I’ve designed over the last few years ✏️ Alongside Beetle Cherry, my day job has been (and will be again I hope) freelance children’s non-fiction book designer. I love kids books! But people often get confused when I say what I d… ift.tt/37HjiRw pic.twitter.com/ZOTaQ5PIFa

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9:09 pm · 18th February 2020
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THANKS EVERYONE 🎉 So delighted that my closing down sale means I can donate another pot of money to the amazing conservation and rewilding work of @durrell_jerseyzoo I can’t thank you all enough for buying every last item I had and helping to make th… ift.tt/2Hg2uWZ pic.twitter.com/amm9qTZyyW

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1:11 pm · 11th February 2020

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