10 of street artist ATM's incredible murals of endangered birds

“From my earliest days I was obsessed with birds, and drawing and painting them.

Birds and animals have always held a fascination for me. I love going off to the places where they live, sitting still and waiting for them to appear.”

“With these murals, I want to reach people in their everyday lives, to show them huge images of the creatures that often go unnoticed or unknown.

Working with like-minded artists and a local community group on a housing estate in West London, we got to work on some big bare walls.

I decided to paint a snipe, a wetland bird, as the road was Bollo Bridge Road, which once crossed the river Bollo, now hidden beneath the tarmac, like so many urban streams and rivers. It seemed a fitting metaphor for what we are losing.”

“I got such an overwhelming response from local people, they were so grateful that someone had taken the time to add some colour and vitality to their estate.

They were so curious about what a snipe was and why I’d painted it, that everything fell into place. I realised I'd found my niche.”

“One of my favourite murals is the hen harrier on an isolated concrete WWII pill box on the Isle of Sheppey.

I painted in the wind and the sun, while the waders were wheeling around the shoreline, making their evocative calls as I worked.”

“The red-breasted merganser on the Island of Utsira in the North Sea is also a favourite, on a big black rock below a rusting radar station, again a relic from the war, which has since fallen into the sea.

They both symbolise to me the ultimate survival of nature as human conflict and damage recedes into history.”