Swift Tea Towel

£ 9.00

Summer Swifts tea towel
Organic Cotton 
size: 51cm x 81xm

These beautiful organic cotton tea towels have been designed for us by wildlife artist Richard Allen.   They are made out of organic cotton and printed in a water-based non-toxic ink that doesn’t harm the environment.  

Swifts need our help
Swifts only spend a few months in the UK each year, migrating here from Africa every spring to raise their young. But these aerial masters are now on the Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern in the UK. Their numbers fell by 62% between 1995 and 2021. The reasons behind their decline are not yet fully understood but loss of suitable nesting sites is part of the problem. They usually nest in small gaps high up on buildings and when buildings are renovated or demolished, Swift nests are lost.

You can help by adding a Swift box to your home.  For more information and details please contact Hampshire Swifts
www.hampshireswifts.co.uk

Richard Allen SWLA

Richard is an artist and illustrator based in East Anglia amid the creeks and marshes of the Essex coast. His great passion is the natural world, particularly birds, and he enjoys the challenge of sketching and painting them directly from life in the field in all weathers. The Colne estuary near his home in Wivenhoe provides plenty of inspiration, especially in winter when large flocks of waders and wildfowl flock to the coast.

A freelance illustrator with over 35 years experience, his work has appeared in many books, newspapers and magazines, as stamp designs, and on interpretation panels for many conservation bodies, including the RSPB and National Trust.

When not illustrating Richard is interested in printmaking, particularly the boldness of linocuts and has produced two collections of prints, “Coastal Birds” and “Garden Birds”. He also works in oils and is drawn to birds with bold patterns such as Lapwings and Avocets against the patterns of mud and water as found on the local estuary.

Richard won the “British Birds” Bird Illustrator of the Year Award in 1993, and in 2016 was elected a member of the Society of Wildlife Artists.