River Otters In The Arb

We’re expecting three weeks or so of solid rain so we decided to go for a walk this morning out to the UC Davis Arboretum before the deluge hit. We saw a few new birds for the year (green heron, orange-crowned warbler…) but the big excitement was seeing a couple of river otters in the Arboretum waterway! Pica had heard that they were around several weeks ago but received no subsequent news about them. The waterway is a closed body of water so the mystery is how did they disperse into it — probably taking a sneaky path from Putah Creek following any number of culverts. We saw the otters working their way along the north side of the waterway: they were mostly underwater but we could spot their wake and air bubbles. The best view was after they had ducked into one of the storm culverts on the side of the waterway. One of them poked their head forward, and we had a clear view of his muzzle and whiskers! There is plenty of carp for them to eat, so we hope they stick around.

You Know You've Been Standing In One Place Too Long

…when a squirrel runs up your leg. This happened during yesterday’s outing: I was finishing up this sketch of an azalea in front of the State Capitol at the time.

Yard Coop

Last week I was taking Charlie Cat out for a stroll in the yard when he noticed a lot of sparrow activity about the stacks of bee box stuff. I saw that he wasn’t the only one fascinated by the sparrows: there was a smallish Cooper’s Hawk very intently perched on top of Pica’s cherry tomato stands. I eventually took Charlie back inside, returned to work on sketching the hawk, who after a while flew down to the ground to catch a sparrow, and then flew over the building with it.

Yesterday I returned from an overnight trip to see lots of black phoebe feathers scattered near the carport and around the bend of the path. A little while later I saw the Cooper’s Hawk fly in and perch on the lattice outside our front windows, and I had a chance for another sketch. I saw the black phoebe still about though, so I think he must have had a close escape.

Bird Book

Yesterday was the Yolo Audubon Society’s annual Fall Drawing and Bird Identification Workshop in preparation for Sunday’s Christmas Bird Count centered on Putah Creek west of Winters. In addition to the grand prize (a framed print of a Terry Isaac bird painting) we were all encouraged to donate prizes for the event. I made a blank book and decorated the cover by calligraphing the names of the birds on Yolo Audubon’s Watch List for the county.

Cold winter weather is coming, just in time for Sunday’s count. Our portion takes us up to the top of the Blue Ridge mountains, north of Putah Creek. There are rumors we might even get a snow flurry or two up there.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pica got me out of bed this morning to announce that our neighborhood turkey was in fact in our front yard. I’m sure he would be thankful to know that our feast this evening consisted of dal and rice.

Self-Aware

Magpies have recently been identified as the first non-mammals to exhibit self-recognition, using the usual protocol for self-recognition experiments of daubing paint on the animal and seeing if they react to it while looking in a mirror.

Surely self-awareness comes in more cognitive flavors than can be captured by the mirror test. Often when I scritch Diego, for instance under the chin or behind the ears, he’ll reach for my hand with his paw and use it to guide my hand to the spot he really wants scratched. Is that glimmerings of self-aware behavior? I don’t know but it’s pretty endearing.

Wild Dude, Wild Dog

Jonathan Papelbon’s dog ate the World Series ball. The Boston Red Sox closer, who became famous during this year’s post-season for dancing jigs to a tune of the Dropkick Murphys, lost the ball given to him by catcher Jason Varitek after the final out of the 2007 World Series when his bulldog Boss jumped up on the counter and started using it as a rawhide chew toy. “He tore that thing to pieces,” Papelbon said. One New England dog trainer is wondering why the ball was on the counter where the dog could reach it. “Bad dog owner. Bad, bad, bad…” she says.

Little Things

For the “Little Things” theme in Illustration Friday. This creature emerges from decomposing piles.

Scale

“You should draw birds at different sizes,” said Jack.

It made me realize that I draw birds the size I see them. And it doesn’t have to be that way. (For an account of our fantastic bird illustration workshop today, see my account on Bird by Bird.)

Bug Art

This artist clearly would have the upper tarsus in a submission to the current edition of qarrtsiluni.