Poor Beaky Blackbird lost his beak many years ago in an apologetic accident. I’d bought him from a Highland artist in times gone by and took the breaking of the beak hard. Adhesives of various viscosity were no match for gravity in beak relocation. Poor Beaky Blackbird remained beakless, his beak kept in a safe place, just incase.

…or so I thought.

On deciding that today was the day to reinstate The Beak once and for all, could I find the beak in any remotely plausible receptacle? Even Ronan (visiting son) searched high and low to no avail. There was no sign of the missing beak.

Thus plan B took shape, so to speak!

I’d bought Ronan and Tabitha some Tony’s Chocoloney egg-stra special chocolate eggs,  though regrettably they didn’t last long… (sorry Tabitha). However, the egg carton looked promising.

Until I tried it on for size!

Having talked about it earlier, a paper mache beak seemed like a plausible possibility, so I mixed up a paste with PVA, Tony’s Chocoloney Easter Egg carton and some water colour paint. Mixing a matching hue was harder than I thought!

As was forming the fibrous goo into a sensible shape… Shoebill?

Chough?!

In the end, I settled for something which you might suggest is just slightly better than no beak.  It’s the best I could do! It took hours!! As soon as one side looked good, the other was ridiculous! We went through a whole range of beaky birds – toucan, pigeon, puffin…

 

Perhaps, from a distance, Beaky Blackbird’s beak is fairly acceptable (or as my Mum would say ‘a blind man running for a bus wouldn’t notice’).

Ronan took this video last night – beautiful blackbirds’ evening song from the back step (best with sound on!). We used to sit on the back step when he was wee, listening to the blackbirds!

 

[For the eagle eyed – Ronan is one half of Jute City Jam].