Cliff Swallows

Zeladoniac at Drawing the Motmot passes on a tip from bird artist Barry Van Dusen: concentrate on one bird until you really GET it. Don’t switch between herons and warblers to pigeons and caracaras: really learn them one at a time.

“For example: Monday=Raptor Day, Tuesday=Shorebird Day, Wednesday=Cassowary Day (or whatever shows up for you). Try it!”

Well, we have no shortage of swallows, it seems. Now that the barn swallows are nesting, the cliff swallows that normally nest colonially on the bridge over the creek have started prospecting the carport also, and one pair is about 1/3 of the way along.

I sat outside last night watching them coming to and from the bridge, collecting mud that is abundant in an area where an underground pipe is burst. Water is precious here and it’s just pouring into evaporation land, something that makes me nuts, but it does make good mud for swallow nests.

You get about 2 seconds per bird in flight. If you’re lucky. But they tend to repeat the same gestures, the same turns, particularly on the return journey when they have to fly into the wind.

I went over to the mudhole and sat down. Several swallows alit, wings and tail fluttering, while they collected mud bits. I’m not clear the color on the underside of the wing is right, but I think I’ll spend some more time with them later on, as Barry suggests. Till I really know the bird. You might be seeing swallows for a while…

Swainson's Hawk in the Field

Done in my Moleskine Sketchbook which is not well adapted for wet media, but oh well.

Here Come the Young'uns

I saw a juvenile Swainson’s hawk this morning. It was flying. That was quick.

This young crow is parked out over by the horse paddock, begging as hard as he can. You do what works.

Barn Swallow

A pair of barn swallows is nesting in the car port. Now that they’ve finished building their nest and have stopped flinging mud all over the place, it’s a bit more peaceful. It’s a good spot: It gives them protection from the sun and the fierce wind, which has resumed after a five-day respite. They will eat mosquitoes voraciously all summer, which is fantastic.

I’m not sure whether they take turns incubating, but one of them sits on the nest while the other one sits on an outsize nail nearby…

Still Coming In

It’s six months since the Cosco Busan oil spill. We are still getting letters from schoolkids with great ideas how to save the environment, thanking us for our work, and sending in some wonderful art.

They want to know what they can do to help. Believe me, guys, this is right up there…

Trying to Work Larger

People tend to draw at a constant size relative to what they see. What I tend to do is draw what I see, and if it’s far away, that can be pretty small. Some people draw smaller than what they see, others larger, but the scale seems to be constant unless you make an effort. It’s a big brain shift to switch out of that. Working small has its advantages, of course: it’s fast, and when it’s fast you can go for the gesture, which I try and do a lot.

But sometimes it’s not enough. And when Jack Laws suggested I try working larger, I took it to heart, mostly because if you’re doing a bird’s portrait, even in sketch form, it helps if it’s large enough to show detail.

The Bullock’s oriole was feeding in the mulberry tree out back this morning. I could have picked up my teeny sketchbook and done a 1:1 pen and ink drawing, which would have made the bird about 2” tall in my book. But I’m trying to work larger, so I picked up the 12×16 Canson pad and started with color.

It’s a start. It’s a brain shift. But I have to trust it will get easier…

Swainson's Thrush

It has cooled down. A Swainson’s thrush was singing outside this morning. I spotted another one here at work while I was on hold on the phone; quickly sketched it.

The wonderful relief of a southwest breeze…

Guinea Fowl

Wandering home from a reception on campus last night, I stopped because I heard a warbler chip. Never did see the warbler, but below the oaks was a sizable flock of guinea fowl, wandering around like they owned the place.

I’ll be participating in Drawing Day, on June 7th. The aim is to publish a million drawings from around the world on this date. Join us! I probably won’t just be drawing birds, but hope to draw lots of them… Thanks to Katherine Tyrrell of Making a Mark for alerting me to this event.

Wind, Hot, Out of the North

We’ve had no rain for three months. We’ll likely get none at all till November.

The dust now blows and gets in our eyes, our nose, like some dustbowl parody. The garden clings to its billing as drought-tolerant, for now.

The birds are clinging, meanwhile, to their treetop nests, swaying and dustblown.

Mallard

Ron and Joe came to visit yesterday. We had a great time wandering around the arboretum, becoming intoxicated by the scent of a flowering Philadelphus (I’d love to put a couple of these in the garden in an area that’s just been cleared of sort of obnoxious groundcover, along the wall by the kitchen and bathroom windows… it’s called “Purple spot mock orange” and thrives in our hot, dry climate). We spotted Townsend’s and hermit warblers. We went north to see the tricolored blackbird colony. We had lunch at Kathmandu which was fairly mellow given that everyone was at the Whole Earth Festival. And we did a quick lap of the Festival because (well, just because).

I had planned to sketch a lot more than I did, but here’s a mallard and a Swainson’s hawk silhouette. I did a pastel drawing of a Western kingbird that I’ve yet to upload. The wind is ferocious just now and dust is blowing around horribly. I hope all the birds sitting on nests in high trees are okay…