First Fleet artwork collection

Drawing of two birds perched on a tree stump against a plain background, with a detail of a branch from a flowering shrub to the right. The plant has a red-brown stem with digitate leaves composed of five narrow green leaflets, and yellow pea-like flowers. The large bird at lower left is depicted in left profile. It has a black crested head with a white patch on the side of the neck, and a white belly overlaid with black hatched lines and crescent-shaped markings. The upper parts are olive green-grey overlaid with darker hatched lines, and the primaries and tail feathers outlined and shaded. The smaller bird, above and to the right, has its body pointing right and its head turned in profile to the left. It has a dark-grey down-curved bill, a black head with a red patch above the eye and a white patch at the back of the head, and a white throat and underparts. The wing is yellow overlaid with grey detail and shading, and the tail is grey. The drawing is framed with a thick black ink line and a triple-banded border, the central band of which is coloured with a pink wash and contains the title, signature and date. Most of the outer band appears to have been lost through the drawing having been cropped.