Tricolored Blackbirds

I was able to get over to the Museum of Wildlife, Fisheries and Conservation Biology at lunch today to do some tricolored blackbird studies. Not only were there prepared skins, but also a couple of birds in the freezer that hadn’t been prepared yet, which I was able to look at for a close look at the bills.

Looking at a tricolored blackbird next to a red-winged, the obvious things — deper crimson epaulette, cream-colored stripe — were eclipsed for me by how very different the bills are. The trike’s is longer and more pointy, the redwing’s shorter and rounder. The quality of the black is different, too. Black is never really black, and the trike’s is more blue (pthalo) versus the cad-yellow-black of the red-winged.

I still absolutely suck at drawing bills.

Green-winged Teal

Last weekend’s controversy about the garganey still has me perplexed. I was delighted to get to the museum today at lunch and find that there was a significant fraction of North American anseridae already laid out for the 1:00 pm systematics class.

I decided to draw the green-winged teal. This bird had much less white in the face than the one we saw on Sunday; clearly, there’s a lot of variation possible, and it reminds me to look hard and draw harder…

Northern Mockingbird

There’s been a mockingbird outside my window at work. I’ve sketched it quickly several times, never quite getting it right. At left is this morning’s effort. The bill, the bill, the bill.

At right is my slower drawing of two individuals from the wildlife museum at lunch today. Upside-down… but good again to have the time. Numenius joined me today and drew a dog shark and a hooded oriole, both of which were out on display for the class that was coming in or had just left…

Island Scrub-Jay

When my boss sent me a photo of a banded Island Scrub-jay this morning, I decided to look for one at the Wildlife Museum and draw it instead of the raven I’d been planning on.

This jay was in a tray with three Western scrub-jays. It dwarfed them. It was also intensely deep blue, more a purple-blue than a more yellow-blue. I had hoped to draw both. I ran out of time.

I’m going to have to plan my museum trips a little better so I waste no time when I get there…

Hermit Warbler

I just spent my lunch hour in an Aladdin’s cave, the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology on campus.

I wanted to study warblers. I was given a drawer of hermit warblers and chose one, a brightish male, to work on. I didn’t really do any pen sketches, which I think I should do first (and plan to next Friday: in fact I plan to spend every Friday lunchtime there for a while, since Fridays are mellow for them and sort of mellow for me). I did a couple of pencil sketches I colored in and then did the drawing above.

Great place for studying anything bird-related. I learned, for instance, that warbler bills are really quite broad at the base, kind of like tiny flycatchers, which makes sense, because that’s what they are…