Soaring view of nature

It overlooks a shallow valley in the Howardian Hills, a place where

birdlife is almost queuing up to feature in his work.

On this morning, as mist dulled the autumnal blaze on the far ridge, he'd been watching a barn owl on patrol. Later, in a snapshot typical of his back garden, there were visits from a tree sparrow, great tit and coal tit, pheasant and chaffinch. From the front door the neighbours included a male and female kestrel taking in the view from chimney pots.

It's a dream setting for an ornithologist and made dreamier still when the Pomroys arrived in Ampleforth 15 months ago and discovered their new home was called Swift House. "An extraordinary coincidence, a wonderful fluke," said Jonathan. How so? He's a representative of Swift Conservation, a group protecting the interests of this amazing flier which swoops in from Africa every summer to nest, naturally enough, in the eaves of its namesake.

Pomroy is ecstatic about the way things are working out. "There's so much happening here if you open your eyes, and it's all for free. What a great privilege to be living in such an inspiring area,

especially as I live and breathe swifts."

Not far behind in his personal pecking order are waxwings, the avocet, fieldfares, lapwings, red-throated divers and all the other species contributing to his reputation as one of Britain's leading wildlife and landscape artists.

Swift House is just down the lane from Mrs Pomroy's job – Hannah is head of maths at Ampleforth College. And her career and its location fill her husband with gratitude for the freedom it gives him to take his sketchpad and brushes to places near and far where there is material for his art.

It might be Kirkbymoorside, Sutton Bank or Byland Abbey, the Yorkshire coast, Northumberland, Dorset, the north Norfolk shoreline, Pembrokeshire, or Cape Wrath at the north-west tip of Scotland. "aahhh," he sighs, "everyone should go there at least once in their life."

The results of some of his pilgrimages, including those within a few miles of Ampleforth, feature in Pomroy's first major exhibition in his adopted county. The watercolours and oils reflect his quest to freeze, as truthfully as he can, a decisive moment in nature's constant shifts. His camera offers one route, but for him brushstrokes present the greater challenge in conveying the elusive power and beauty of a breaking wave and the mysteries of birdland.

He grew up in Berkshire and went to Bristol College of Art, which was handy for the Severn Estuary and visits to Slimbridge Wetland Centre, where one of his heroes, the naturalist and artist Sir Peter Scott, established the birthplace of modern conservation.

After flirting with graphic design, Pomroy decided to follow Scott's

example and in all weathers began sketching there. "Sometimes it was so

cold the wash froze and my brush was dancing over ice." The reward was a solo exhibition at Slimbridge, and the urge to paint and draw full-time. "For me art is a way of communicating the wonders of nature."

Since then Yorkshire and its coastline has been one of his most productive areas. He and his wife used to live near Skipton, giving him easy access to the Dales and the chance to produce images of birds like black grouse and curlews in their desolate habitats. Bempton cliffs, Sandsend and Filey Bay provide different canvasses and this autumn Pomroy visited towns closer to home to seek out wildlife dramas most of us would miss amid the human hurly-burly.

He's spent hours in Kirkbymoorside and Helmsley sketching a flock of waxwings – migrants from the spruce forests of Finland and Russia – feasting on the berries of rowan trees. His fascination for them is not confined to their striking appearance, a haunting trilling call, or the fact he can translate their beauty within a frame on the wall.

In doing so he also hopes, in some way through his draughtsmanship and paints, to acknowledge their resourcefulness, their struggle for survival and obliviousness to man-made borders.

"Try and imagine the journey they had to get here," says Pomroy, "and how they then face the challenge of looking for the food they like best.

"Research suggests that each flock sends out a couple of scouts to find that food supply and once it's been consumed the flock moves on. It's an endless, restless quest accompanied by ever-present dangers. In a picture I strive to capture something of the process in an individual expression, the position of a feather, the hint of movement, anxiety….hopefully, a sense of 'what happened next to this bird?'"

For a few weeks in the summer, Pomroy will experience similar feelings when the swifts cross continents to breed again above his doorstep.

It's one of the fastest, furthest-travelled, and enigmatic of birds. Apart from the brief period when it's nesting, it spends all its relatively long life airborne.

Everything, perhaps over a period of 20 years, achieved on the wing.

As the artist in Swift House asks himself: how can a mere paint brush begin to express something as complex as that?

Wildlife and Landscapes of the British Isles, an exhibition by Jonathan Pomroy, at Helmsley Arts Centre until December 24. Tuesday-Friday and Sundays 11am-3pm.