The Peregrine Sketchbook by C.F. Tunnicliffe

Charles Tunnicliffe (1901-1979) was one of England’s great wildlife artists, especially well known for his book illustrations. In May 1948, he set out to visit the seabird colonies nesting on the cliffs of Anglesey, an island off the north coast of Wales. His diary for that day vividly records his excitement when, with a sweep of his field glasses, he suddenly came upon a peregrine nesting on the cliff face in a “garden of rock plants”. For the rest of that summer Tunnicliffe returned to check on the development of the young, sketching page after page of his notebook with the various peregrine poses and behaviors he intently observed. Twenty-six color sketches are preserved in The Peregrine Sketchbook, along with many of the late scraperboard illustrations that they inspired. Matched with Tunnicliffe’s sketches are the excited journal entries he made of his memorable summer in North Wales. Derek Ratcliffe, author of the standard monograph for the peregrine, provides an afterword on the Anglesey peregrines.

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