One Hundred Years ago the Fulmar only bred on the most westerly point of the Outer Hebrides, St Kilda. Since then there are now aproximately 500 colonies along the east and west coasts of Britain and Ireland. Most Ornithologists link this explosion of numbers to the increase in the amount of offal being discarded by trawlers. The Artist writes in a letter to the late owner; 'It was the result of a very absorbing piece of study at a new Fulmar colony in Cornwall, and I was quite unable to work out the behaviour pattern. Sexes are alike in Fulmars and because all three birds were equally friendly to each other I was never able to establish the nature of the triangle except that it provided a very lovely composition for a painting'.