Some of the best encounters with Australian wildlife happen right outside the studio door. My studio sits in the bush, ringed by endangered Bellarine Yellow Gums, a rare eucalypt subspecies found nowhere else in the world but Victoria's Bellarine Peninsula, and a lifeline for local birdlife when little else is in flower. Last week I was putting the final touches on a commissioned painting of a pair of Forty spotted Pardalotes, one of Tasmania's rarest and most quietly extraordinary endemic birds, when I stepped outside to rinse my brushes and found the Yellow Gums above the studio full of company.

Three species had come down to see what all the fuss was about, as if reviewing the work in progress. First was a Yellow faced Honeyeater, easy to place by the bold yellow crescent brushed beneath its eye and the soft olive buff of its plumage, a familiar, gregarious presence in eucalypt woodland across eastern Australia and a favourite subject for anyone painting native honeyeaters. Not far behind came a male Golden Whistler, unmistakable in his black hood, crisp white throat and brilliant yellow breast, one of the most striking songbirds you'll find in Australian bushland and a bird whose colour seems almost too saturated to be real. Rounding out the trio was a Spotted Pardalote, close cousin to the very bird taking shape on the easel inside, its cap stippled with white dots, its throat glowing a warm orange against soft grey and buff.

There's something fitting about painting a Forty spotted Pardalote, a species now confined to a handful of Tasmanian strongholds and listed as critically endangered, while its livelier, more common relative perches just metres away in a Bellarine Yellow Gum that is itself endangered. It's a small reminder of why bird art matters beyond decoration. Every honeyeater, whistler and pardalote that turns up uninvited, drawn in by a threatened tree in flower, is part of the same story being told on canvas: the fragile, beautiful diversity of Australia's native birdlife and the habitat it depends on, and the value of noticing both before they're gone.

Commissions like this Forty spotted Pardalote piece are as much about research and observation as brushwork. Days spent watching Yellow faced Honeyeaters, Golden Whistlers and Spotted Pardalotes move through the same trees are what keep the paintings honest, and remind me why I do this work in the first place.

If you have a favourite native bird, or a species close to your own heart, I would love to bring it to life on canvas for you. Commissioning a painting starts with a conversation about the bird, the setting and the story you want told, and ends with a piece made specifically for you. You can find out more and get in touch on my commissions page.