A friend I've known for 40 years cajoles me into writing a long letter by hand at least twice a year. This year he, and his wife, sent me a magnificent calendar for 2010. But, despite the beauty of the calendar's paintings by J. Fenwick Landsdowne, one of my all time favourite bird artists, there was a tinge of sadness as I read the artist's short biography on the back of the calendar.

Landsdowne's year of birth, 1937, was followed by a hyphen, and another number, 2008. This simple notation informed me that my life-long inspirational bird artist was gone.

I saw Lansdowne's artwork for the first time when I was 8 or 9 years old. His renderings appeared on the back page of the Star Weekly newspaper, one species per issue, and from the moment my older brother and I laid eyes on the artwork of J. Fenwick Lansdowne, we were hooked.

Somewhere, somehow, my brother and I spotted an advertisement for a portfolio of Lansdowne's art. We then scraped together pennies usually spent on handfuls of jawbreakers and Popsicle's until we collected enough to send away for the offered package. Weeks went by and finally a large envelope arrived. The package contained many bird prints painted by our new hero, each picture was a beautiful rendering of a bird we knew well. To us these pictures were awesome in the true sense of the word.

However, in the hands of a nine-year-old, and a ten-year-old, the portfolio eventually deteriorated and was lost during a move. But I never lost my love of Landsdowne's bird art.

I have spoken of the bird art of Allen Brooks and how inspiring it was, and it certainly had an impact on me, but Lansdowne seemed somehow like a peer. We learned that he was very young and gave his first show at a prestigious gallery in Ontario while still in his teens. And though we never met, he seemed accessible, and constantly inspiring.

My brother and I continued to collect reproductions of Lansdowne paintings wherever we went. We even discovered that he painted the Snowy Owl on the White owl cigar package! It seemed natural given my worship of this artist that I would try to emulate him.

One year, while still a young teen, I received a paint-by-number set for Christmas. After I finished the painting that came with the paint-set, there was enough oil paint left over to attempt my own Lansdowne-like painting in oil. I did not succeed! The paintings I admired so much were rendered in gouache or tempera watercolour media, not in oils. Ironically, my younger childhood drawings copied from the master in pencil and then coloured with tempera paint, were closer to what Lansdowne actually used for his paintings.

Eventually, Lansdowne's books of well-known Canadian bird species were published. I never owned Lansdowne's books but I certainly read, and pored over them many times. One of his later books, the second book of birds of the West Coast now sits on my bookshelf, a gift from an acquaintance who moved away, and knew that I liked birds.

It is difficult to say what I received, and continue to receive, from the bird art of J. Fenwick Lansdowne. He melds my love of birds and my interest in art to provide me with a bedrock of being that is the better part of me today.

When my hands doodle with a pencil, and birds just appear - that is the Lansdowne effect. When my eyes linger fondly over one of his great bird renderings, and I feel the urge to exclusively draw birds - that is the Lansdowne affect. Now, with a Lansdowne 2010 calendar of art on my wall, it seems fitting that I should revisit the great bird artist every day while making bird notes. What gifts a person gives by their living they will never know.