Peregrine Falcon, Still There

The female peregrine was still sitting in her spot on the UC Davis water tower when we went to pick up the paper yesterday — sketched her from the other side this time. It was overcast which made it a lot easier to pick out feather details.

Burrowing Owl

I went over to the Raptor Center this morning before a hike. I wanted to get some sketches of one of the two burrowing owls that are there. Burrowing owls are losing a lot of their habitat here to development and agriculture (and to ag-extirpation of ground squirrels, whose burrows they purloin).

This owl’s name is Hobbit; he’s missing his right wing, so he spends all his time on the ground. This morning we had a heavy frost and he had found a spot in the sun, where he stayed for some time, apparently happy with the distance I had chosen (thank goodness for the monocular; all the sketches shown here were done through it).

I tried doing all the head movements again, bearing in mind that owls can, and do (and this one did) turn their head 180°. Then I tried a colored-pencil sketch, which was going well until two volunteers walked past with a Swainson’s hawk on jesses and Hobbit got spooked…

The Morning Crowd

The bustle of activity that congregates just outside my window at around nine and the disperses within about twenty minutes or so involves quite a few species. Today I saw northern flicker, Nuttall’s woodpecker, western bluebird, European starling, American goldfinch, yellowrumped warbler, northern mockingbird, and dark-eyed junco.

And then they all left.

Zoo

This is my submission for Illustration Friday’s theme, Zoo.

I went to the zoo again yesterday for a meeting, but my coworkers were happy enough to wander around for a few minutes. I drew more flamingos. This is my first attempt at scanning a sketch and coloring it digitally in Illustrator (as opposed to Photoshop). Flamingos are so iconic and they lend themselves to a flat, graphic style.

White Pelicans

White pelicans wheel
over campus at lunchtime:
into the sun

European Starling

The bluebirds outside my window were making a commotion this morning. Here’s why: a starling had started to investigate the cavity in the utility pole they’ve been working on for weeks.

This got me more agitated than I care to admit. I opened the door and scared away the bird. It returned with another starling…

Peregrine Falcon

There had been a report of a female peregrine falcon sitting on one of the UC Davis water towers over the past couple of days. I headed over there on my bike on the way home from lunch today. Sure enough, there she was, preening.

I pedalled home to get my new scope and spent close to an hour, doing about 20 sketches. Most of them are miserable: I feel as far away as ever from mastering raptor bills, though I’m determined to keep practicing — but I’m posting quite a few to give a sense of how the bird moved “in place” — preening, looking, keeping an eye out for prey and anything else.

I’m also becoming less worried about how bad the drawings are and more able to be grateful just sitting in the presence of something so awesome. It’s sometimes easy to forget that peregrines were almost wiped out by pesticides thirty years ago. We saw one yesterday in Inverness on Point Reyes. Seeing one again today seems unbelievable. Seeing one for close to an hour so that I could draw it? Fantastic.

Flying Free Again

As I explained here, we went to a release of birds in Tomales Bay. (I’m posting this out of order.)

The birds flew into the center of the bay and all clustered together there, preening. They flew so fast it was hard to catch them to sketch them, but they fly with their undercarriage down and out: I managed to get that part, at least!

A Walk Into Town

We walked into town today for an excellent lunch at Kabul; on the way saw some birds, which we both sketched, having sketchbooks in our pockets.

The pseudo-Moleskine sketchbook I’ve been using is now full and I had to resort to the real thing, which I had lying around. I don’t like the paper as much, though it holds a wash better. I may have to go on a search mission for the fake one…

Oiled Bird Care Doesn't Stop For Thanksgiving

I spent much of the day down at Cordelia again today, ostensibly to give a break to my hard-working colleagues (but which ended up being more media work: the story of the day, “several dozen people give up their thanksgiving holiday to care for the birds” — never mind that most of us were either foreign or vegetarian or both and were in any case quite happy to be there).

Ron and Joe were there too (as was Lisa ); Ron got recruited to take a hapless PRBO worker to Oakland Airport right away, the hapless PRBO’er having missed the airport shuttle, while Joe cut up smelts. The birds are feeding well.

They fed us Thanksgiving dinner at lunchtime so we were feeding well too. Joe, who knows from pie, said the pumpkin pie “exceeded expectations.” Me, I liked the mushroom sauce.

But mostly I am grateful to have a chance to work with these incredible people doing incredible work against all kinds of odds. (Not to mention the chance to get so very close to these birds to sketch them.) The two gals from Tri-State Rescue and Research (Chesapeake Bay) who are here helping out with the spill got word today there’s another oil spill, this one on Long Island. They’re heading home on Saturday for that one. The weather won’t be as good there, said Rebecca…