Black Phoebe in Cold

It’s been very cold here, not much insect activity. This phoebe was trying to get insects on the ground this morning from the top of ground-squirrel burrows.

Turkey Vulture

There must be a dead something across the road…

Hermit Thrush

I led a gesture drawing workshop at Cold Canyon this morning. We were mostly working on plants, but I snuck in this hermit thrush…

American Crow, Dead

During our bird walk today we found a dead crow. There was still a little twinkle in the eye so it was newly dead. I brought it back to the Center for Vector-Borne Disease next door to my office. They conduct necropsies on corvids on campus to check for West Nile Virus. I interrupted a birthday party complete with cake…

Board Meeting Owl

Now that I’m no longer president of Audubon, I’ve resumed doodling during meetings. It doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention….

Tricolored Blackbird

Rick did a beautiful job of framing this…

Red-tailed Hawk on Wire

European Starling

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.

Sketchcrawling at the Raptor Center

Lots of bird sketches on Saturday during the Sketchcrawl. There were presentations during the Open House of both dead and live raptors, the live ones used to people, so plenty of opportunity to sketch.

I like drawing skulls because it’s a great way to familiarize myself with the way the bill attaches to the head, which I seem to mess up every time I try it. This golden eagle skull is something I drew several times.

All the birds that are used for educational purposes at the Raptor Center are unreleasable, whether or not they have imprinted on humans. The birds that have a chance of being released are never in public view.

Study skins are good also for learning bird anatomy but I don’t usually draw birds at quite this angle (barred owl on tray, right)!

After our trip to the Raptor Center and some more sketching downtown, we went out to the Yolo Bypass so I could sketch some blackbirds on tules, part of a study for a drawing I want to do as part of a fundraiser for Yolo Audubon. We caught only fleeting glimpses of tricolored blackbirds but I was interested in seeing how they perch, which the redwings do pretty much the same way.