"Happy Landing"

Happy Landing

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2025 · Pastel on PastelMat · 36 × 68 cm (unframed)

​Reference: Les Liddle

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Happy Landing celebrates everything we love about puffins — their character, their optimism, their slightly improbable approach to flight.

 

They arrive with determination rather than elegance, wings whirring, feet outstretched, fully committed to the moment. And somehow, it works.

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But beneath that joy sits a more fragile truth. For a bird so full of personality, the world has become increasingly difficult.

 

Changes in our seas, shifting fish stocks, warming waters — all of it affects whether that landing leads to a safe burrow, a healthy chick, a future colony.

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This piece holds both things at once: the delight of a puffin doing what puffins do best, and the quiet hope that these landings continue for generations to come.

 

It’s a pause mid-air — a reminder of why it’s worth caring.

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Joy, after all, is part of conservation too.

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