Dorothy Yglesias was an author and bird-carer based in Mousehole, Cornwall.
The daughter of the Catalan painter Vincent Philip Yglesias (1846-1911), a London-based artist associated for 13 years with the artists’ colony at Walberswick, Suffolk. Her sister was the artist, Phyllis 'Pog' Yglesias.
After their father’s death, the two sisters, their brother, and their mother, Edith, also an artist, moved to Cornwall from north London. They first arrived to Cornwall in 1912 and settled at Lamorna. Close friends and exhibitors with the Birch family, together they ran a small gift shop at the foot of the Flagstaff Cottage driveway, with the Birches selling toys and small paintings.
In 1928, the sisters began their bird hospital and sanctuary in Mousehole, which Dorothy described in her best-selling 1962 book The Cry of the Bird. The sisters cared for hundreds of birds in their time and received particular attention during their response to the Torrey Canyon oil spill off Cornwall in 1967. Dorothy Yglesias received worldwide correspondence following the publication of her books. She became a bard of the Gorsedh Kernow in 1978, taking the name Cares Ydhyn Gwyls, 'Friend of the Wild Birds' in Cornish.
The Mousehole Wild Bird Hospital remains in operation as of 2022.
Works in our collections
