Bored - during lockdown? Read on

Peter , pleased you enjoyed reminiscing , my acquaintance tells me he still has a few original books of his Great Grandfather , including ‘The 7 Volumes of the Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Isles ‘. And yes , a number of the 420 odd coloured illustrations of birds in the seven volumes are by the ‘noted’ artist Archibald Thorburn: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Thorburn . I’m pleased you enjoyed , and what good fortune to have these books treasured within our County.

Hi Adrian, excellent plates which were already imprinted on my brain, and as I scrolled through them l realised why. They are Thorburns drawings used in the Observers Book of Birds. As a six year old these were the pictures that introduced me to a life long obsession with birds. Great to see them again, thanks for the trip down memory Lane.

Regards Pete

Terrific! The Biodiversity Heritage Library is a superb source of material from yesteryear.

An acquaintance of mine has passed the following link of digitised images of British Birds for perusal . His Great grandfather was publisher for Lord Lidford who wrote and illustrated the 7 volumes of ‘ Coloured figures of the birds of the British Islands ‘ have been digitised by Harvard University. www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/69277#/summary . Therefore all seven volumes of the Coloured figures of the birds of the British Islands along with their coloured illustrations can be viewed online.

For Example Volume I:

www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/107386#page/1/mode/1up

Scroll ‘slowly’ down the introductory pages - there are quite a lot of them - to read the narrative and look at the bird illustrations. The pages can be ‘enlarged’. These beautiful illustrations date from around 1850 , enjoy .