Thank you very much for your responses
The pictures are not done with oil paint though. I did use oil paint a couple of times, but I got to admit I run frustrated with the endless time oil paint takes to dry and the mess it is likely to cause if one doesn't stay very clear of the image in its drying time. Also I made the experience that oil paintings tend to get rather dusty in the process of drying. I used acryl colors for these paintings which have most of the benefits of oil paint but without the long drying time and the bonus benefit that they can be worked with with water.
See, I'm so unfamiliar with paint that I don't even know the types.

:
I am thinking about another picture showing an appropriate setting for an owl (regular forrest / and field). If I am to finish it there I would likely paint a vulture into that setting (as a desert bird), but I also like the Ostrich and Roadrunner (Meep Meep) you suggested.
Ah, I didn't think to consider vultures. By the way, now that I think about it, while a roadrunner might not
look out of place in your desert landscape, they really prefer scrubland environments; deserts with lots of cacti and shrubby vegetation, rather than the kinds with rolling sand dunes as far as the eye can see. So if the idea is that the birds in your paintings have "switched" habitats, then perhaps a roadrunner wouldn't be ideal. Then again, I'm guessing that most of the birds you'd typically find in that kind of desert would be just passing through; even the toughest of desert birds would prefer an environment where food was easier to find. So maybe it doesn't matter which kind of desert bird you use (especially since they wouldn't be appearing in the desert landscape anyway

). Sorry, I think I'm rambling.
I think about adding another picture, but I don't think the ideas I have had so far are fitting very well, because the birds involved would still fit into the landscapes involved.
For example it would be kind of cool to have a mountain based image, but birds which I would associate with mountains (eagle, condor etc.) would not look totally out of place in a forest setting and a vulture (which I plan to paint for the desert) would also not look totally out of place in the mountains (resembling a condor)... perhaps if I put it really on a snow capped mountain top...
...oh well some of the ideas I had and discarded (involving eagles, birdcages, pidgeons and red glowing volcanoe craters) were bordering cruelty to animals
The bird of paradise on a mountain you suggested is an interesting idea Hrvoje. The main problem is to get a mountain bird into a setting where it really doesn't fit. With the parrot "jungull" I may have also "used up" a proper bird and setting for the paradise bird.
Well, the
alpine chough typically lives at high altitudes, but perhaps it's not a distinctive enough "mountain bird". There's also the
red-billed chough, which is a little more striking in appearance, but apparently it's doesn't adhere to mountain habitats as much as its relative (it sometimes nests on sea cliffs), and it still might not scream "mountain bird out of place" to your satisfaction. I do think that if you illustrated a male Andean condor distinctively enough (with the "jowls" and big gray comb on its forehead), and put it in a setting far enough removed from its native habitat (not in a field, though
maybe a forest; condors typically avoid forests because they prefer open spaces where they can spot food easily, not to mention fly without impediment, given their nine-foot wingspan), it could work for the out-of-place mountain bird. They do look pretty distinct from other vultures:

I do have some other ideas. Perhaps it's not as "natural", but you could paint a domestic bird like a chicken in a mountain scene, or perching high up in a coniferous tree, and put an exotic wild bird (such as the aforementioned condor) in a barnyard setting. You could also paint a bird that typically dwells in or near fresh water, such as a heron, duck, or swan, somewhere far from water (again, the mountain environment might work well), and then paint a pond or stream with a bird that you typically
don't find near water.
The gull is based on a picture of a gull I took in Scotland in 2005.

But just as you say the proportions of the body in particular aren't quite right. It was even worse at first (I did some corrective work along the back of the gull / shore of the river), but I was a bit reluctant to do the kind of correction along the river (which most likely would be more complex than the shore which may look more "ruffled" in terms of color... but looking at it again the darker "corrected" spot does stand out more than I'd like it to. Maybe I really got to get back to this picture one more time). With the color of the legs of the gull I was indeed surprised how yellow the legs of the photo I took of that gull looked. I don't know for sure which kind of species of gull it was, but I guess I need to get a thinner kind of stiff-bristled brush for the kind of detail. While doing the gull I was kind of worried that it might end up looking like a goose 
Whoa, that's a cool photo!

I guess it's most likely a lesser black-backed gull, since yellow-legged gulls apparently aren't typically found as far north as Scotland. (It's worth noting, though, that all my knowledge of European gull species comes from cursory browsing on Wikipedia, after I started wondering whether there were other kinds of gulls with a red spot on their bills besides the herring gull. So mine could hardly be called an expert opinion.

) And for the record, I can assure you that I recognized the bird in your painting as a gull right away.

Can't wait to see more artwork!
