Mallards in the Rain

After the rains, there is a pair of mallards in the pond out the window. The female was hunkered down in the long grass but the drake was peeking out…

Nuttall's Woodpecker

They’ve mowed some of the grass outside and there’s a lot of bird activity, including this male Nuttall’s working the insects up the locus trunk.

Burrowing Owl

This burrowing owl lost its left eye at an early age, and has been at the Sacramento Zoo ever since. He was having trouble seeing out of his remaining eye and was determined to have a cataract. He was having the cataract removed today at the Vet Med Teaching Hospital; I got to go in and take pictures. (I also made a quick sketch while we were waiting to go into the anesthesia room.)

ETA: Found out last night the owl didn’t make it… :(

Mallard Hybrids

The Wildlife Health Center has done a lot of work on avian influenza and has tested a lot of the mallards at the Arboretum, which turn out to be mostly mallard hybrids. The population has dropped tremendously since a pair of river otters moved in a couple of years ago… Sketched these yesterday just by the bridge near Mrak Hall Drive.

A Sketchcrawl in the Arboretum

Pete Scully has been very diligent about organizing regular sketching outings in Davis. Today we dodged rain showers in the UC Davis Arboretum. About 8-10 of us spent four hours wandering around sketching.

I took the opportunity to do quite a bit more bird sketching than I’ve been doing of late. A cormorant was very cooperative (apart from when dogs went by) and I got several chances to have a turn at drawing it.

Marlene and I snuck off for a quick mocha at around 2 pm, which took us past the Australian section. There was one bush in full bloom with red blossom, where hummingbirds and orange-crowned warblers were frantically feeding.

great day; I haven’t done this much sketching in a protracted way for a while.

Bluebirds prospecting

There is a Western bluebird pair scoping out the nest box by the office. Unfortunately for them, the tree swallows are interested too, and are far more aggressive. Maybe we need more boxes…

Eurasian Collared Dove

(Eurasian collared dove, graphite/prismacolor)! First time I’ve seen the Eurasian collared dove at work… Their range has been spreading throughout this region. I heard them at home at lunch today too.

Trumpeter Swans

I’m up in the San Juan Islands, Washington, for a spinning workshop. There are three trumpeter swans on a lake near my friend Jean’s house. I spent a good long while sketching them yesterday.

Scrub-jay after the Rain

Lots of bird activity today following a shower overnight, which our new weather station tells us provided .04” of rain…

Colusa NWR: Day One

A falcated duck has been reported off and on from Colusa National Wildlife Refuge, a mere hour north, for about three weeks. We didn’t get a chance to go before the holidays and then I was off to southern California, but we did finally get up there on Friday, December 30. Nobody saw it at all that day, but it was beautiful and calm after a storm had blown in… I sketched waterfowl, particularly shovelers and a nice Eurasian wigeon. Coots were getting territorial.