So many of you have enjoyed the latest Birds magazine cover and the rspb-images team say that print sales have been excellent, so I just wanted to share this image of a beautiful collage of the cover that was sent to Gemma Hogg, who writes our news column in Birds, by Lorna Cooper.
Lorna says:
"I was blown away by the Winter 2012 RSPB magazine cover, as an artist in collage (amongst other things) I was inspired to create my own image of the iconic barn owl. I hope you like it!
There is also a story to tell which concerns returning one evening at dusk from dropping off my daughter's friend.I was driving down Crow Hill near Bakewell when a car passed in the opposite direction. As it disappeared I saw a blob of white on the road and felt compelled to stop. As I got out of the car I saw a tawny owl sitting on it's bottom turning it's head from side to side. I felt sure that as I approached that it would fly off, but it didn't. I decided to pick it up and see if it would recover in my car. I placed it gently on the passenger seat and turned the heating up a little, after a few seconds the owl keeled over and lay still beside me. I felt so sad thinking that such a beautiful creature had died and decided to take it to our vet in the village. I set off home, stopping occasionally to check the owl, but it was lifeless. As I approached the final hill to our home (Shady Lane to the locals!) the owl suddenly sat up and and righted itself, it began to flap it's wings in an attempt to take off, I wondered if anyone had appeared driving behind me, what they would have made of the Harry Potter type scene! I opened the passenger window,fully expecting the owl in it's panic to flap out, however, it calmly hopped onto the sill, turned to look at me and gracefully took flight into the night sky. I felt so thrilled that it was alive and that I had had the opportunity to have such a close up view of its stunning plumage.
On returning home, my family was much bemused by my story, not really surprised as I am constantly rescuing frogs, worms and other creatures I see in dangerous situations!
We always enjoy getting our magazine, but this one really was stunning."
Coverlines on Birds - what do you think?
It's great to hear that so many of you enjoy our covers. I know that lots of you have been Tweeting about it as well and we'll be featuring some of your thoughts in the next issue. There is a debate about coverlines'on Birds magazine. Of course, lots of magazine have coverlines so they stand out on the shelves and tempt people to open them and look inside, but as Birds is sent to RSPB members and we receive so many comments admiring our covers from readers - and even other magazine editors - what do you think? Would you like to see coverlines to set up what's inside, or keep a 'clean', image on the front? I'd love to know how you might feel about some teasers on the mag.