Hermit Thrush

This one met an instant bad end on a plate-glass window this morning, but the colleague whose house it was brought it in for me to draw…

Crows on Branch

Acorn Woodpecker in the Arboretum

This is only the second time I’ve ever seen this species in Davis. Lots in the chaparral, but not here….

Anna's hummingbird on nest

Dusting off my Pentel brush pen, woohoo!! This drawing’s from a photo of a bird on a nest atop a pine cone at North Pond.

Western Bluebird Perched at Dusk

Young Red-tailed Hawk

A hawk flew into the tree and stayed for a long time, partly obscured by branches. It finally flew out and across the field to the horse paddock, where it perched for long enough for a sketch…

Gulls at Point Reyes

We spent the day at Point Reyes today, hoping for a massive fallout of warblers given the cold front that had come in. Unfortunately we only got five species, but we did have a lot of time to study gulls.

The Western X Glaucous-winged hybrid, above, was at the Fish Docks near a Western — smudging in the face and not-quite-black primaries set them apart. We then went down to Drake’s Bay for lunch, which we shared with mostly Western gulls.

I’ve been drawing these with Derwent Inktense pencils and adding water. It’s a great way to work fast. The colors are Bark and Indigo.

Green Heron in the Afternoon

At the UC Davis Arboretum today.

Common Ringed Plover

We have another national rarity here in Davis. This common ringed plover has been hanging around for a week, very cooperatively. Given the rule of shorebirds that they stay for a day, three, or seven, we may be lucky if it hangs around tomorrow, but who knows.

This bird looks different every time he turns around. A major diagnostic feature is a white supercilium, but this is concealed in many lights. I did get to see a foot with a lack of webbing, separating the bird from the semipalmated plover conclusively.

I was working on illustration board which was not happy about my watercolor washes. But I do love my new watercolors: Schminke. It’s Roz’s fault.

Little Stint

Yesterday I was slammed at work till nearly 6:30, missed all the emails about Todd Easterla’s find of a Little Stint at the Davis Wetlands. It took an email from Linda who’d seen it on NARBA (National Rare Bird Alert) to clue me in this morning at 6. The Wetlands opened at 7: plenty of time to throw on a pair of jeans and take some tea with me.

The walk from the car out to Tract 2 took about 20 minutes. Another 20 for one of the 40+ people there (I was figuring there would be more like 200+) to find the bird. It was obvious, though, very orange head, very easy to see in the beautiful early light.

This is ABA bird # 701 for me. The last ABA bird I got was the Colima warbler 4 years ago. Wow. Fun to have one show up in our back yard!