https://www.facebook.com/347390496027789/

Flo Coughlan, Harare (2026)

13/11/2022

Giss or j**z… 🐥🦅

Any bird lover could tell you that this is a Hoopoe, even when it’s a quick pencil sketch. No colour, size or location is needed to identify it…j**z it’s vibe.🕺🏻🧘🏻‍♀️
Which is what the Irish, who first coined this term, meant when identifying a person’s essence.

Like most things Irish, the term has a bit of a catch to it and was introduced to birding circles over a century ago. 🎶
Aviators and intellectuals have since argued that the word j**z originated from the term GISS( General Impression of Size and Shape used to identify aircraft )or Gestalt( form and shape ), but the majority of twitchers have ignored these chirps. 🙉

In short, J**Z is the word that forms the basis of all birding identification when the sighting is not clear.

How do you tell the j**z of a bird ❓

Is it hopping or wading? In a flock or not? Is it’s flying pattern undulating wing flaps or short snaps? Beak straight, long, curved, short, stubby, thick or thin?
Is it big or small, high in a tree, on water or running along the ground?
Colour?…. another whole story in itself! 🎨
In other words it’s the essence, the behaviour, the silhouette and location of the bird.

Just like you would know a little grey-haired lady hunched over a walking stick is not a rapper or Keith Richards is not a nun, so would you know that a skimmer is not an eagle.
Identify the vibe first and then start twitching down to the last tail feather.
You’ll be hooked j**s like that. 📸🪶

06/11/2022

Nidicolous or nidifugous …🥴

It’s ridiculously hard for me to pronounce these words before a glass of wine…so I don’t really try. But I shall try hard to deconstruct them with my birdbrain and without being too tedious. 🥱

Altricial birds, as with predators and primates, are those born totally dependent on their parents and hence are nest bound(or chest-bound). Due to this helplessness, they are nidicolous( nest-inhabiting).
They’re immobile, they lack feathers, they’re nearly blind and they’re incapable of feeding themselves. Almost human I’d say. 😏

Precocial birds however, (as with hooved animals), are born feathered (or furry) and capable of sight and hearing. They are mobile and so are nidifugous (nest-fleeing). They can keep up with their parents to feed, and at the hint of a predator, lie low and freeze. Most water and game birds are precocial. 🦆🐥
The English word precocious is derived from this example of “maturity before it’s time”. A trait we altricial humans distrust or perhaps find threatening? 🤔

Avian examples of these degrees of nest dependence are doves( nidicolous) and ducks( nidifugous ).

🪶A newborn dove( squab) is barely feathered and in need of constant care; a duckling is fluffy and capable.
🪶A squab is blind and incapable of feeding itself. A duckling is alert and capable of feeding or searching for food.
🪶A squab is nest bound. A duckling can waddle and swim.

However……all of this aside, it will only take the underdeveloped dove a few weeks to be the same size, and have the same colouring as it’s parents, whilst it will take the precocious duckling a few months to look and sound like it’s parents. ⏱🦆

And it’ll take a human nearly two decades to reach adulthood and try never to dress or sound like their parents. 😎

Section of acrylic on canvas.
1.2 x 1.1 m
Dove flock in Mana.

27/10/2022

Everyone loves a Bluey..

If you grew up in Southern Africa a few decades ago, Blueys were probably the first feathered birds that you could positively identify. 🐦

If you’d called them Blue Waxbills, you may have got a clip behind the ear from your mates for being a Know-it-all……definitely a trait that was not to be encouraged when “showing off” austerity measures were fully enforced. 👊🏻
And if you were a young boy aiming to be a big strong boy, as all three of my brothers were, you craftily lured Blueys into your shoebox trap with a scattering of grass seeds. Once trapped, you gutted and plucked them, loaded on the salt, and roasted the resultant 10g on a sturdy piece of wire over a hastily built fire. A tasty crunchy snack, even for your bunny hugging sister 🥲.
As I said, any signs of ecological intelligence were to be suppressed by those aiming to be the ultimate warriors. ⚔️

Now that we’re older and wizened and consummate worriers, we would no more roast a bluey than admit to watching one. We twitch with delight as we feed and water these cheeping cheerful seed eaters. Together with “ Reddie ” Firefinches and Golden Weavers they add splashes of primary colours to the otherwise bland LBJ feeding tray.

Monogamy is their game and they’re busy little nesters, breeding year round especially once the rains have set in. The intrepid males do most of the gathering of fluffy grass-heads and feathers to softly line the interior of the dry grass ball nests that hold the tiny white eggs. 🥚
Once hatched, the altricial nestlings are helpless; eyes closed and necks outstretched, begging endlessly for green grass seeds brought to them by both parents.
Tasty 🐜 are also added to their menu for the protein boost that the fast growing chicks need to become successful fledglings and welcome feeders….. not food, at our garden tables.

Section of acrylic on canvas
Sold

19/10/2022

Born to be wise….

This painting is derived from hundreds of photos I have of baby elephants in the wild bravely trudging on as the temperatures soar and the ground bakes in October. 🔥
Young elephants spend much of the day playing and jousting with similar aged cousins, but later in the year it’s just about sticking close to, and keeping up with mum in order to survive the debilitating heat, lack of food resources.. and in some instances, opportunistic lions.

The 🌨 ⛈and resultant relief will hopefully come soon. Until then, the best mother to have to hang back and have your back is an elephant cow. 🐘
She is wisdom and protection wrapped up in tonnes of love.

Acrylic on canvas
80x 60cm
Sold

🐘🐘

06/10/2022

Butterfly high..

As a small child I had a phobia of caterpillars. I think it was something to do with them being squishy and spineless. Vertebrates were my people after all. 🐘

My small mammalian mind couldn’t grasp the concept that 🐛 were stages of moulting larvae before becoming the inert chrysalis ..out of which the beautiful 🦋 flew. A series of 🐛instars, feeding voraciously to form the final ⭐️.

Once attaining my own adult form, I was fortunate enough to meet . This genuis of a lepidopterist ignited in me an appreciation of butterflies that persists to this day. I’m below novice level on holometabolous metamorphosis 🥴, instars and winter forms but I do plant shrubs that host them and mostly forgive any 🐛 that feasts on foliage. In the bush, I definitely drive around elephant dung covered with Brown-veined Whites, and for personal reasons I greet every Gaudy Commodore that comes to visit us. 🦋

So much about these flighty creatures impresses me …. that the female🦋 lays eggs on the host plant which the emerging 🐛 prefers to feed on, knowing that they can hardly leg it around looking for more suitable food. That 🦋 know that muddy puddles, fresh dung and carrion contain minerals in liquid form that they can suck up. That some male🦋 defend their territories fiercely and all whirr around females wafting off pheromones.

It fascinates me that some emigrate to die over the Indian Ocean and others migrate across continents through generations…. and that, unfortunately for most, life flutters by in just a few weeks.

Their wing scale colours inspire and uplift me, and feed my soul every time one appears at just the right moment to remind me of precious departed loved ones that we grieve for. ❤️
Grief, after all, is an instar of eternal love and these beautiful insects are metaphorical messengers reminding us of just how transient our time on earth is.
🕊

Pearl Charaxes
Acrylic on canvas
Sold

🦋

29/09/2022

The egret has landed… 💦

An afternoon spent quietly at any bush pool or pan is never wasted. Feathered fishing skills, pecking orders and landing expertise…or lack thereof, make for good viewing. 🎣
It’s also a great time to brush up on your water flocks in general and solitary egrets in particular.

But… so much to consider for the fledgling twitcher. 🙆‍♀️
Adult or juvenile? Breeding or non breeding? Nomadic or resident? Eye lores; yellow, orange, purplish or green? 🎨
What’s a lore?! Certainly not a myth, it’s the area between the bill and the eye that can change colour during breeding or similar stress. Legs and bills..yellow, black or both, or orange? And never mind the Little or Great debate. 🤔

With long necks, longer legs, and piercing eyes, the large egrets are the supermodel snobs of the pan. No squabbling and loud honking like the gauche geese, no crash landing comme les ducks and certainly no crass clattering of bills like the storks. These monogamists reserve their chatter for back at the nest, but well within earshot of their communal colony. 🗣

Setting out at dawn, slow undulating flaps of their wings take them from pool to pan. On approach they glide in, wings outstretched, undercarriage up, and at the last moment extend their perfect pins and land in the shallows. Without webbed feet their paddling is poor and so they restrict themselves to striding and stalking…or standing stock still while extending or wriggling their spear gun necks, tilting their head fractionally. This helps their eyes and brain adjust for refraction or parallax as they hunt fast moving little critters below the water surface.
A deft stab and a fish is a kebab. 🍢. No high tech fish finder needed, just a bird brain!

Occasionally they perch atop hippo Ubers and get to move effortlessly between fishing spots, glancing haughtily across at their vulnerable slaty cousins foot-stirring in the shadows.
And then, on taking off, they always plane left and glance briefly right at their tick-eating cattleclass cousins….slumming it on the plain. ✈️

Acrylic on canvas
SOLD

22/09/2022

Essence of the animal. 🐘🤍
The animal I feel the most rapport with is an elephant. I cannot really say why, but perhaps it’s to do with fierce love, silent bonds, ancient rites and familiar passages. In other words, family. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

This section of a large canvas is of a breeding herd on the move.
As all Africans know, you do not want to encounter a herd of elephant cows whilst on foot. They will not hesitate to squash you. As would all mothers who should and must protect their young.
Being pregnant for nigh on 22months is no walk in the park, especially through periods of drought, danger and uncertainty. This combination makes for cheeky cows who have nothing but their precious babies to lose. 🤱🐘

The very wary and often weary cows don’t bother with mock charges as the bulls do. No heads held high and ears flashing, no trumpeting……. just heads down, ears back and a silent charge that they will follow through.
Having no males to help protect their young is by choice; they evict their sons from the herd as soon as they reach their teens. As sisters, aunts, nieces and daughters, the cows form a coalition that very competently and compassionately looks out for each other. 🔗
Dribbling males in musth are briefly invited into the herd on a “ needs to do “only basis. They are certainly not expected to stay for dinner. 🤔

Daily, the herd matriarch will lead her family from food source to water source, and in the late afternoon, back into the safety of the forests and Jesse bush for the night. In tough times, she’ll dig deep into her memory bank and trace the footsteps of her ancestors along well worn trails, or gwashas, to find scarce food and 💦.

How honored and privileged are we to ever walk along and amongst these trails. May we human minions always tread carefully and respectfully on the footsteps of these gentle giants.👣🐘

Acrylic on canvas 60 cm x 150cm

17/09/2022

Why do some birds hop🐥?

I love painting big canvases but trying to capture the characters of little birds on a smaller scale is just as rewarding. Especially the little insectivores who hop about, stabbing their sharp beaks into the leaf litter hoping to surprise an insect who has lost concentration or hope. 🐛

On this small canvas, they’re Grey-backed Camaropteras… my absolute favourite of the old school warblers. They’re fairly solitary, although sometimes seen in small family groups rummaging around in leaf litter or bleating about the bush.🎶

Territorial monogamy is their game and they’ll start nesting in the next few months, just as the first rains fall and the insect population explodes. This will ensure frequent grubby meals for their chicks, unless of course a wily female Cuckoo without a care for motherhood, parasitizes their nest. 😎
Then they’ll have to stop hopping, and jump around as enough will never be enough for the oversized foster chick. 🐣

Acrylic on canvas 15 x 50 cm

13/09/2022

Mighty mopanis 🍂
At the first hint of the 5 minutes that is autumn in low lying areas of Zimbabwe, butterfly-shaped mopani tree leaves fold their wings for the last time and fall to the ground. Gathered against tree trunks and in shallow depressions, they form a crinkly carpet that keeps little critters warm through winter nights, and wild dogs and lone lions cool on a late summer day. A carpet that yields hidden delights for insectivores, and a last ditch dose of desiccated protein for starving herbivores just before the rains come.

In times past, these same leaves, when boiled, were a ready remedy for infected human wounds or failed circumcisions. Add a twist of bark and any hint of syphilis or mopani madness disappeared too. 😎

The steel strong trunks of the mopani, whether standing or fallen, leafless or laden, with so many hidden nooks and crevices, are just as giving. They don’t discriminate, and provide shelter for all manner of mongoose, squirrel, spider, scorpion and less than cute stingless bee or tsetse fly. Little mopane bees that love moisture; the kind of moisture that gathers in the corners of your eye as you feel the penetrating pain of the blood sucking proboscis of a skulking tsetse fly. 😢😫

It’s tough out there in the mopani, and thank goodness it is…….it keeps the humans away. That is, until the “ mopani worms “ come out to play and the pans put on their full floral and avian display. And then, dear humans, unless you’re foraging or forging ahead on foot, bring your Landrover… your Toyota will definitely get stuck!

Acrylic on canvas 100cm x 70cm

07/09/2022

I am a Mopani girl at heart but I do love an Ilala Palm. 🌴
Standing like sentries on the banks of the Zambezi, they exude the mystique of bygone times. Times when mighty rivers were important trade routes and the source of glorious adventures. Times when their fermented sap soothed minds, and their fronds thatched homes and fueled cooking fires.

Today they do little of the above, but elephants and baboons still savour their fruit and flesh, and palm swifts still cling to and nest beneath their fronds. Local artists carve the hardened “ vegetable ivory” fruit core, and painters love to capture on canvas the negative spaces that their fronds form.

Like all trees, they just keep on giving…

Acrylic on canvas 80 x 60cm

🌴

Flo Coughlan

13/11/2022

06/11/2022

27/10/2022

19/10/2022

06/10/2022

29/09/2022

22/09/2022

17/09/2022

13/09/2022

07/09/2022

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category