Dawn Cooper brings birdwatching to the Radio Times!

To celebrate the return to the screen of the BBC’s Springwatch, Dawn Cooper has illustrated the perfect bird watching guide for this weeks Radio Times; something to occupy yourself with on those daily exercise walks, adding in Dawn’s words, ” a little brightness into our lives at a less than usual time.”

Working from Chris Packham’s guide to garden birds, Dawn spent a lot of time researching reference imagery of each bird, so that her illustrations were recognisable and accurate. Her first hand research didn’t go quite as well;

“I admit that so far I have only spotted a robin and a blue tit, and some brown birds I didn’t get a proper glimpse at, but I will be keeping an eye out for the others!”

For Dawn, this project was her favourite kind of escapism; drawing plants and wildlife so that others may engage with the outdoors as well!Working closely with the designer Ellie Field — a dream client of Dawn’s — the illustrations are beautifully complimented by the calligraphy of Marlene Diaz Ellinghaus, who works in Ellie’s team.

As the weather gets warmer and the days get longer, we highly recommend getting outside, grabbing a copy of this weeks Radio Times as well as a pair of binoculars and seeing how many of Dawn’s beautifully illustrated birds you can spot!