Picture Profile 2308: Wild Horses on Giara Plateau.
Artist Code: 2308. Completed July 2022,Watercolour 12” x 9” Aquarelle Arches 140lb 100% cotton rag paper.
This little painting was done as a book plate for the River Friend Series, Book no. 7 “WATER—CLEAN AND DIRTY”.
Its caption is: Fig. 17. Wild horses graze on the Giara Plateau where there is still an abundance of flora, e.g., pink Sea Bindweed, Calystegia soldanella, the golden yellow Whorlflower, Morisia monanthos, and Ranunculus (white flowers abundant in the water, central background), which thrives in the marshes and shallow summer pools
Academic studies have shown that some of the highest European aquatic species-richness areas are in the Giara Plateau in south-central Sardinia. In the UK there are parts of Ireland, and Galloway in south-west Scotland. In all these places there was abundant structural diversity fully illustrating this. But since that research was carried out in the 1970s, the species-richness in the Irish and Scottish areas has declined, mainly due to drainage, which has also affected banks and substrate. And loss of water has definitely altered, with much aquatic vegetation loss, these fragile habitat areas.
