Great-Horned Owls

I walked over to the Raptor Center at lunch with two coworkers. The great-horned owls seemed to be in the spots they always choose — I guess they mark their territory even in the round enclosure.

There were some people there who were trying to get good photos of the raptors. They were making noises and banking on cages to try to get the birds to look at them. This makes me sick and I had to say something.

This young female owl has been in the owl enclosure for nearly two years, but she still has her “spot” at eye level rather than in the rafters. I’m guessing it will always be that way now.

Wild Turkey Displaying to Solar Cooker

When I arrived home last night, this turkey was displaying to our solar oven.

House Sparrow

This morning I came across a dead house sparrow in the bed I’ve just planted with lettuce seed. I don’t know what got him—I couldn’t see any marks—but I hope the end was quick at least.

I was all set to draw the bird from the top (facing right) but decided to go for the challenge of foreshortened feet and the awkward angle of the head, and have the bird face left. It’s always a good thing to shake up my preferences. I couldn’t get the grays quite right and think I have some experimenting to do with constructing grays, not hauling them straight out of the box.

(I submitted this to Illustration Friday’s topic of March 19, “Expired.”)

Northern Mockingbird

Funny how mockingbirds, virtuosi of the bird world, barely open their mouths when singing… There were several faceoffs today at the Capay Cemetery.

Kites on Patrol

The white-tailed kites are incubating. They are being harassed constantly by crows; the nest will almost certainly succumb. I hope not… I love having them around, kip-kip-kipping. They are great rodent hunters…

Tree Swallows are Back

And prospecting for nests. It’s glorious here today.

Mallard Tests

Last week the Wildlife Health Center here at UC Davis trapped and examined 22 mallards. They were actually all mallard hybrids except for two, fat and with poorly developed flight muscles — and lesions on their feet that are common among heavy birds that walk on gravel a lot.

The study is looking for signs of avian influenza as part of a Pacific flyway monitoring system. I was able to go and see a couple of the captures. These birds are used to being fed but even so were surprisingly hard to catch.

Black-Chinned Hummingbird

I got back yesterday from Palm Desert. The wildflowers are going to be spectacular this year. They aren’t yet, but they’re going to be. I was ecstatic about seeing several desert pupfish at Thousand Palms.

Hummingbirds everywhere — I saw a couple of Costa’s but mostly they were black-chinned. The ocotillos will be blooming soon, then look out.

Before the Storm

Bird Looking Right

Long-time readers of Bird by Bird may have noticed that i try to alternate my bird sketches to the left and right of text. This is mostly to break up visual monotony on my blog page. But I’m also always trying to have the bird facing the text, rather than looking off the page. (I can’t help it. Years of work as a designer make me notice this kind of thing as opposed to being able blithely to ignore it.)

But the problem is this: most of the birds I sketch are facing right. This doesn’t mean that most birds face right; it means that most of the ones I actually sketch are facing right. Studies have shown (and if I were writing a psych paper I’d run out there and fish out some references) that the human brain is far more likely to home in on not just the eyes of something with eyes, but the eyes looking a particular direction. This seems to change with hemispheric domination, and I’m not sure what dictates what, but my hemisphere seems to dictate that I draw birds facing right.

Photoshop to the rescue? Alas. The lower magpie is flipped in photoshop but it looks wrong to me, off, somehow, definitely off-balance. It’s very strange. You should try it.