Wrong Holiday

The turkeys are back, strutting and helping themselves to whatever they fancy in the garden.

Hunting season for turkeys starts soon. It’s extended by 2 weeks for archers…

By the way, take a look at Bridget’s blog, BridBird — she’s an artist who often does bird prints. I love the vivaciousness of her lines! Took a leaf from her book to render the alfalfa around this displaying tom this morning.

Red-shouldered Hawk with Prey

Lots of commotion this morning. I think the ground squirrel babies have been venturing above ground because this was definitely too big to be a mouse or vole, though I never got a good look at it.

There was a second bird, or the same one, that caught a second rodent within 30 minutes of the first…

Slate-colored Junco

We almost never see this race of the dark-eyed junco, but this bird was hanging out this morning with the fresh-plumaged Oregon juncos. It was gorgeous.

Before the Wind

It was supposed to rain this morning. I had all kinds of plans for things I was going to do, rainy day things. But instead I went outside with my new Pentel brush pen and drew this starling.

It was gorgeous with almost no breeze this morning, so we went on a ride the long way to South Davis (about 13 miles). I sketched this savannah sparrow while Numenius fixed his toe clip. I then decided to go further to the Bypass where a ruff’s been reported regularly.

There it was, the reeve. Bright orange legs, short bill, blob of white above the bill.

Now I have to figure out how to get all those things done I was supposed to…

Red-shouldered Hawk Outside the Window

Oregon Junco

These guys will be gone very soon….

Bushtit

We went out this morning and I saw a bushtit gathering spiderwebs for its nest. There was another one this afternoon doing the same thing, but this time I had my paints.

They are restless, tiny creatures that are tricky to see well. I never got a good look at the head. Realized it needed to be grayer so I added some gray in colored pencil afterwards…

Swallows

Mary’s home. I went across the street for manure and to deliver turnips; she invited me for tea. We sat outside watching the swallow action.

The tree swallow was flushed by a car. Immediately its place was taken by my first barn swallow of the year. Yesterday I had my first rough-winged, and today at the bypass we saw our first Bigby violet-green swallows. The only one to get now for the year is bank, and that one’s going to be tough…

Male Northern Harrier

Seeing the ferruginous hawk last week has made me look for it even though we haven’t seen it since. I spotted a white blob on the ground at the base of the levee this morning, got the binoculars on it: not a ferruginous, but a beautiful adult male northern harrier, and sitting still for once. I got the scope out and started to sketch, filling in more detail as the bird stayed put.

Then I realized: this bird’s wrong. The eyes are wrong. They have a pale yellow eye with a tiny dark pupil (especially tiny in the full morning sun).

So I started again. Here’s my second attempt. The bird was flushed by a jogger on the levee but by then I had my first sketch for color reference…

I love the way these birds stand, legs splayed, ready to spring.

Golden-crowned Sparrow

The zonotricchia sparrows will be gone, soon. I heard golden-crowns this morning at home, rare among the white-crowns. Then two popped up outside the window.

I reached for my pentel waterbrush, realized that the reason it wasn’t flowing much water was because of a red plastic ring around the middle (no doubt there are instructions about this but they’re in Japanese), took off the ring and squeezed, and a huge sploosh of black ink came out. I rinsed the brush and then did this quick doodle of the sparrow’s head.

The sparrows were quite cooperative and one of them was coming in to full breeding plumage. The tail’s a bit short: I ran out of paper. Hope these birds make it safely to their breeding grounds in Alaska…