Bird studies to be auctioned for wildlife charity

A collection of avian art is being auctioned to benefit the wildlife charity that the artist helped to create.

Lay's Auctioneers in Penzance is selling 80 scientific studies of birds by Valentine Paton with proceeds going to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust (CWT) of which he and his botanist wife, Jean, were founding members.

The auction house's art cataloguer Mark Pollard said the studies were "an important documentation of Cornwall's avian history from a man who has quietly done much to benefit our county's wildlife, produced with time and care by a skilled and deliberate hand".

The online auction begins on 31 October and is set to end on 16 November.

Mr Paton, an architect who led the building of New County Hall in 1964, created the series of studies of British birds in the 1980s in his Probus home.

Many of them were rescued specimens brought to him by friends.

Mr Pollard said: "His mastery of form and detail, honed through both architectural precision - evident within the preparatory graphite drawings on graph paper - and a naturalist's eye, lends his work a quiet authority and gentle beauty."

A spokesperson for CWT said the money raised from the sale would be dedicated to "our work creating a Cornwall where nature thrives".

They said the Patons' contribution to the charity had been "astounding".

The spokesperson added: "In 2003, when Jean received her MBE, she and Pat were known to have added more than 20,000 observations - such as sightings of birds, butterflies, or plants - to various local and national wildlife recording projects."

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