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A Brit abroad
Beast Blog
Bird by Bird
Blaugustine
Bowen Island Journal
but she's a girl
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Creek Running North
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FieldMarking
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Frizzy Logic
Frogs and Ravens
Hoarded Ordinaries
Laughing~Knees
Making a Mark
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Meanwhile Here in France
mole
Mulubinba Moments
Nature Blog Network
Not Native Fruit
Orcinus
Philosophical Rabbit
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Qarrtsiluni
The Semantic Naturalist
Sister Spirit
Small Change
Swatting Fungoes
This Too
Toad in the Hole
Turning Leaves
Typographica
Velveteen Rabbi
Via Negativa
The Where Project
Wild West Yorkshire
Black-headed Grosbeak · Friday July 4, 2008
We were sitting reading when we head a lot of screeching outside followed by a dull thud. I got up to look but saw nothing; Numenius found this grosbeak later. We think a hawk may have been going after it given the commotion and the fact that these birds don’t usually fly into windows…
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Turkey Vulture With Ground Squirrel · Wednesday July 2, 2008
We don’t see so many turkey vultures in summer (unlike turkeys, which seem to be all over the place). The crows went after this one with gusto, but it held its ground…
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Turkey Hen With Chicks · Monday June 30, 2008
This morning the hen turkey brought her chicks around under the walnut. It’s a sweep I think they make at least once daily… I tried sketching quickly. There seem to be six chicks left…
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700 party: Four New Species Sketched · Sunday June 29, 2008
It was a great party, but I was especially thrilled to see pileated woodeckers. Didn’t get many sketches done, but this one was done as we arrived at Lake Solano and were locked out of the park, pondering what to do till it opened at eight: Nothing like a good bird to wake everyone up!
Peacock chicks were everywhere, and you have to hope for some natural attrition or there will be more peacock poop than Canada goose poop here…
There were several gorgeous males. We had a lengthy discussion about exactly how you’d reproduce the peacock blue with watercolor…
A wonderful day, and a great venue for a social gathering.
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Bullock's Oriole · Sunday June 22, 2008
The orioles have been whistling and chattering pretty solidly. This young male was good at hiding in the almond tree but came out enough for quick glimpses…
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Tree Swallow · Saturday June 21, 2008
OK, there’s also a cliff swallow in there. Trying a new ink, an india ink without shellac suitable for fountain pens, it doesn’t run with watercolor. I’m liking it so far… It’s called “Pen & Ink Sketch” by makers of a Moleskine lookalike sketching journal I’m finding I prefer to the Moleskine.
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White-headed Woodpecker · Monday June 16, 2008
A quick glimpse of this male, only, up at Yuba Pass on Saturday. But a lovely glimpse it was…
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Back from the Sierra · Sunday June 15, 2008
Despite my own best sabotage efforts, I did end up making a sketchbook (with a yellow cover, not gray, because it’s what I had) and took it with me this weekend when we went to Sierra Valley and Yuba Pass.
Texas taught me to work fast, and that has become a useful tool. There was a lot of ground to cover and we saw a lot of birds. The technique of working in pen and then adding color later mostly works…
The Hammond’s flycatcher, left, is for my dear friend Linda, for whom it was a nemesis bird for so long (I think she reached 700 without it).
The red-breasted sapsucker, right, is for Picus, because, well, he likes woodpeckers. (We dipped on the black-backed, Christopher, but saw all the others…)
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Red-shouldered Hawk with Ground Squirrel · Wednesday June 11, 2008
It has been so windy here that finding birds that do more than blast by has been a challenge. (The wind is supposed to die down tonight, bringing us 100° temperatures for the next few days.)
A lot of crow squawking in the tree alerted me to this red-shouldered hawk, disappearing into the canopy with a ground squirrel. I was just able to see it through the the branches.
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Pigeon Guillemot · Tuesday June 10, 2008
Another treat about Alcatraz was being so close to pigeon guillemots, the large black alcid with huge white wing patches and startlingly red feet…
The biggest treat of the day, though, was this very smart five-year-old who asked intelligent questions about treating oiled wildlife. After a while I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. “Maybe work with birds,” she said. “Or maybe,” I whispered, “President of the United States.”
Eyes like saucers, she ran out with a belly laugh to her mother. “I’m not telling you what she said,” she said.
But then she did.
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