'Wayside' has almost ceased to exist as a birding habitat, but it figures in this enchanting 1922 watercolour

                               

Buzzard-filled sky over a Devon wayside

'WAYSIDE' used to be a recognised habitat in its own right - evidenced by T.A. Coward's Birds of The Wayside and Woodland which was a popular identification guide in the 1940s and 1950s. 

Now, however, it is a term seldom used except in the phrase "fallen by the wayside".  

Where is wayside to be found? 

Such has been the pace of roadbuilding and other development since the middle of the last century, it is much-shrunken habitat often now renamed 'wasteland'. 

It is good, therefore to see it featured in the 26cm x 35.5cm framed watercolour,  A Wayside Gossip, painted by Devon-based Wycliffe Egginton (1875-1951) in 1922. 

The study is due to go under the hammer at a sale to be conducted by Tennants of Leyburn tomorrow, Friday, August 14. 

In recent years, the artist has slipped from favour, and the pre-sale estimate is that the hammer will fall quite quickly at somewhere between £80 and £120.