Osprey

I was on my bike over the creek when a large bird overhead caught my eye: an osprey! I’ve been striking out on this bird every time we’ve been to Lake Solano on our bikes, so it was a huge thrill to see one so close to home.

I biked home fast, told Numenius (who was not able to find it), then biked back north. Again, I did this sketch from memory. Looking at the field guide I see I got the black marking in the face wrong, but you’ll just have to imagine it has white over the eye…

My father loved ospreys; he’d have been 79 today. Happy birthday, dad.

Barn Owl

These days when I wash my hair I go outside to comb it out — keeps all that long gray hair off the floor. This morning I was out there. It wasn’t yet dawn but pleasantly cool. I looked out over the field at the turkey battalions making their orderly way down from the levee top.

Then, there it was. The barn owl. Rowing silently through the air. I forgot the hair and ran back inside to draw it from memory. (Note to self: go nowhere, not even outside to comb your hair, without a sketchbook in your pocket.) I think the wings are a little short — it’s a ludicrously small bird for its wing mass. Glorious, though. Ghost bird.

Wild Turkey

sorry to inflict so many turkeys at you, but you get a good sense of what it’s like to live where we do. Five bands of them, each with at least ten birds, come through the yard daily, clucking defiantly and looking angry.

Western Kingbird

One way to make sure I get a sketch of a bird done is to do it first thing in the morning. The advantage is that it’s cool and the birds are active; if I’m not super late I have time for a sketch; and I have all my materials to hand. I sat down for about 15 minutes and got a nice little species group in the almond tree (Nuttall’s woodpecker, Western scrub-jay, Bullock’s oriole, Anna’s hummingbird, Western kingbird).

I am hoping to get some more color sketches done of Western kingbirds before they start taking off for the tropics. Which is soon. Time is flying by…

Post-breeding Dispersal

Many crows flying about at certain times of day…

Northern Mockingbird

This juvenile mockingbird was sitting in the top of the almond tree in beautiful morning light…

Red-tailed Hawk

Took a trip to the Raptor Center at lunch with a friend to sketch. I clearly need more remedial bills…

Blue Grosbeak (and some shorebirds)

We went out this morning as a group of 9 hoping for shorebirds. We weren’t disappointed. We saw a marbled godwit in among some long-billed curlews not too far from home. This gorgeous blue grosbeak stole the show, however.

A Big Sketching Day

Bird by Bird is nearly a year old. I started out with white-faced ibis on August 27 last year. I haven’t been keeping up with a daily sketch this summer, which has made me a bit distressed, not least because it’s obvious that the facility of drawing vanishes quickly if you (I) don’t do it every day. So I’m resolving to get back to it, even if they are just very fast sketches like yesterday’s red-tailed hawks.

This morning, though, I had a lot of time and did some quick pen sketches of the ibises out on the flooded field just to the south of our house. The birds were a little skittish but stayed pretty much put, and the light was gorgeous on their feathers. I got the pastels out for a longer sketching session.

Ibises are strangely balanced: a tiny head and neck, and a really tiny body, but long wings that give them a weird impression of being about to tip over.

I was ready for breakfast but noticed that the barn swallow babies in the carport were getting ready to fledge, so I thought I’d try and catch them all crammed in their tiny space while they still were. (They have, in fact, already started flying; several left the nest briefly and returned to it while I was sketching, but seem to prefer to let their parents bring them breakfast rather than find it themselves.)

Starlings, magpies: I sketched them too. But when these teenage turkeys settled outside the kitchen window for a nap, I picked up the pastels again. These are the Stabilo Carb Othello pastel pencils, easy to sharpen and a joy to use. It’s good to get back into this.

Richard’s in town and we’re going birding again tomorrow morning; I’m bringing the sketchbook along!

Red-tailed Hawk

It must be fall: the red-tail here was flying about. The Swainson’s hawk chicks are learning to kettle with the adults. The great switch should happen in September.

These flight sketches are done fast, in 5 seconds or so, with the color added immediately afterwards — it’s windy today and the birds are moving quickly. But it does keep reappearing and that helps a bit.