Dear Time-Reader: in our SPORT section this week, we present an unusual four-page portfolio of bird paintings in full color. They were done (some especially for TIME, the others for Manhattan's Linlo House) by British-born Dennis Puleston, who has led a spectacularly adventurous life for a man devoted to such a gentle pursuit--so spectacular that I should like to tell you more about him.

Puleston, who was 47 last week, has always sketched birds in his spare time --whether commuting from Leigh-on-Sea to a bank in London or hunting buried treasure off Hispaniola, or being initiated into a Samoan clan, or traveling "hard" class across Russia, or training troops to land on Omaha Beach.

"I started drawing birds from life when I was six, because they fascinated me so much," he explains. "Whenever I catch a glimpse of a bird whizzing past, it makes such an impression on my mind that I itch to get it down on paper." Puleston is self taught, though he had a family background that fitted him well for bird painting: his mother was an artist, and a favorite uncle took him on bird walks when he was still a toddler.

Well-versed in naval architecture and navigation, Puleston left his bank job in 1931, and, with one companion, sailed across the Atlantic in the 31-ft. yawl Uldra. For six years he adventured around the world, and stopped barely long enough to get married: his honeymoon (with the former Elizabeth Ann Wellington of Manhattan) was spent on a 110-ft. vessel sailing from San Francisco to Tahiti. Puleston took time out to write a sensitive travel book, Blue Water Vagabond (Doubleday) , and to do a few bird paintings -- most of which he gave away as presents. He was surprised when friends asked to buy them.

At war's beginning, Puleston laid aside his brushes and went back to the drawing board with a T square. He was one of the team that designed the DUKW ("duck") for U.S. amphibious warfare, and was tagged to train crews for the monsters.

This took him back to the South Pacific and on to Burma (where his back was broken in a landing accident), then Omaha Beach and, at war's end, Okinawa.

Now head of the Technical Information Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory and a member of two panels of the Atomic Energy Commission, Puleston lives at marsh's edge in the Long Island village of Brookhaven. From the window he can see his 34-ft. yawl, the Heron, or look across Great South Bay to waterfowl feeding grounds. Bird painting is strictly a hobby, pursued in a corner of his dining alcove, usually amid the clatter and commotion set up by four children (aged five to 14) and an assortment of pets.

Southpaw Puleston works from his own freehand sketches and color notes, and consults museum bird skins (stuffed but unmounted) . Each delicately brushed watercolor takes 15 to 20 hours. "When I'm going full blast every free evening," says Puleston, "I can finish a painting in about a week." Last week Puleston laid aside his brushes and took up binoculars to join in the annual splurge of Christmas bird counting reported in SPORT. He was one of a Viking-blooded group which chartered a fishing boat to cruise the Atlantic off Long Island and New Jersey, prepared to brave arctic weather in return for arctic rarities. Actually he ran into bluebird weather and logged a disappointing twelve species, including nothing more noteworthy than 95 gannets. He did better on another count near his home in Suffolk County. That party tallied 89 species, including two stragglers from the far north : the white-winged and red crossbills. Says Puleston philosophically: "Birds are where you find them." And you will find Puleston's birds beginning on page 65.

Cordially yours,

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