Birdly Drawn

Lammergeier: Gypaetus barbatus

2011-07-06T16:25:00.000-07:00

Another vulture, a cousin of the Egyptian vulture, only this one eats bone instead of carrion. How awesome is that?

The Lammergeier is an old world vulture with feathers on its head. 1) it lives at high altitudes and has to stay warm, and 2) doesn't eat meat so sanitation isn't the issue that it might be for other vultures.

The Lammergeier looks for other vultures and then waits for them to finish before swooping in to take the bones. If they can't swallow them whole, they fly with them and drop them until they break. It can take a young Lammergeier years to learn exactly how to break the bones.

The vulture's digestive system is really acidic, allowing it to dissolve the bone and take advantage of the marrow.

Check this out:

Lappet-faced Vulture: Torgos tracheliotos

2011-06-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

If yesterday's vulture was the wizened elf of the vulture world, this guy is its fierce giant.

Lappet-faced vultures are large, roughly 4 feet tall, and they're a more aggressive vulture. Their size and (relative) ferocity means that most other birds scatter when they come to feed... not necessarily a bad thing because lappet-faced vultures have very strong beaks capable of tearing at carrion that other birds (or mammalian scavengers) might not be able to manage.

Lappet-faced vultures are old-world vultures (Asia/Africa), related to hawks and kites; their feet are strong enough that they could conceivably use them to kill, even though they're primarily carrion eaters.

By the way, according to Mirriam-Webster, a lappet is a fold or flap on a garment or headdress or a flat overlapping or hanging piece, and in this case it refers to the flaps of skin on either side of the lappet-face's head/neck... Attractive... NOT.

Doodled from this photo at Wikimedia Commons.

Egyptian Vulture: Neophron percnopterus

2011-06-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

I'm way into vultures at the moment. They're ugly, sure, but they fill a unique ecological niche that's kinda cool... they eat dead things. They're carnivores who (usually) don't kill their meals.

The Egyptian Vulture is one of the smaller old world vultures, and frankly, one of the more attractive.

Smaller, more attractive, and fairly intelligent... it uses rocks to break into ostrich eggs.

Cool, right?

By the way, Egyptian Vulture's are also known as Pharaoh's chickens, they have their own hieroglyph and this one was doodled from a photo at Wikimedia Commons.

Ballpoint Pens are Evil... but Fun

2011-06-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

My habit, of late, has been to find a wildlife photo and try to draw its subject... using a ballpoint pen. The other trick? I can't spend more than about 30 minutes on it.

There are people who are brilliant at drawing with pens. I'm not one of them. I like them because they don't smudge (well they do, a little, if you dampen them... see the crow from my last post). But they do nothing for my self-esteem.

On the other hand, they're really easy to critique because none of the lines go away. I got the owl's beak all wrong, for instance. And the swift's shading isn't all that. Easy to see once you step away for a minute.

More Doodles

2011-06-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

Doodling with a pen is a different experience for me than doodling in something less permanent.

I tend to start with the eyes and then draw everything else in relationship to them, especially with birds. With horses, or kinkajous, not so much... not sure why. Or maybe I am.

Birds don't have expressive faces, but they do (or can) have expressive eyes. Windows to the soul? Maybe not (word has it that an owl's eyes are so large that there's just not that much space left over for the brain in the skull), but it sure makes them interesting.

BBC Wildlife

2011-05-06T08:39:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I pulled BBC Wildlife magazine off the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble. I've been shelling out the $7.99 to buy them ever since... they're what I want National Geographic to be. That is, it's the perfect magazine to carry around with you if you like to practice drawing animals from photographs.

The magazine features animals I wouldn't see here, like this crane photographed in Sweden.

The articles are informative as well.

Did you know, for example, that the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is in decline in the UK? Maybe they'd like some of mine, although it would mean slimmer pickings for the neighborhood hawks.

The best thing about it is that it's easy to pull a magazine out of your backpack at an airport Starbucks and have a go at whatever strikes your fancy. I also tried a harp seal pup and a portrait of a fox this month. Drawing from photographs doesn't usually yield terrific artistic results -- and because selling or exhibiting any drawing based on a photo from a magazine would be copyright infringement, it's not a great idea to invest too much time in trying to make a masterpiece. But doodling from photos is a good way to figure out the anatomy of the thing without having to work in split-second increments... because, you know, wild animals move around a lot.

Delinquent

2011-04-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I'm drawing more than I ever have... and a lot more in pen... but most of it's crazy prep drawings that aren't really fit for human consumption.

Some of the nicer ones from recent days:

Dana came home with a popular men's magazine, and Matthew McConaughey was on the cover. Fine, great, whatever. BUT. The photo spread inside the magazine also featured a Cinereous Vulture. Awesome!

A random macaw:

A fern front surreptitiously plucked from the side of a tree:

The head of a Downy Woodpecker:

Dandelion bits, sketched "in the field" at the Union Bay Natural Area... actually, sitting at the side of a raised bed and plucking bits of dandelion plant to observe and draw. Not very exotic, granted, but I don't feel badly about dismantling dandelion plants, for one. And from a botanical drawing standpoint, they're good to observe because they tend to do everything (bud, flower, go to seed) all at once.

I'll try to be better going forward, but the next four or five weeks are going to be harrowing. One of my classmates said that she made a list of everything she has to do, and for the first time ever, it didn't make her feel better.

Hmmmm.....

Bernini & the Camera

2011-03-20T10:33:00.001-07:00

Birdie doesn't like cameras very much, despite the fact that she's a total ham.

She uses her crest the way we use our eyebrows. "What are you looking at?!"

(Notice her orange eyes - when she came to live with us 12 years ago (!), her eyes were black... we thought she was a he for that reason. She's been sexed using DNA, but her orange eyes were our first indicator that we might have misnamed her.)

Something you might have realized, but just in case not, here's something to think about: most birds look almost silly when viewed head on...

... Little Bird is no exception.

Working It Out

2011-03-12T09:06:00.001-08:00

OK, given that I am not a watercolorist, I am extremely happy with the way this painting is coming along, and here's why:

There's actually some contrast between the background and the subject, and

The bird hasn't gone flat or muddy.

Trust me, these are huge steps for me.

Still to do: flesh out the background a little bit more and push it back a bit by neutralizing the green.

Watercolor Doodles

2011-03-11T12:31:00.000-08:00

I am many things in this world: daughter, sister, wife, decent cook, lover of birds, reading enthusiast...

What I am not, however, is a watercolorist.

I would like to be one, someday, but for now I'm in that experimentation stage where nothing is very good... and it took me a fair amount of time to get here. But I have decided that I like these little doodles. Not because they're great watercolors, but because they give my journal a shot of color and life, which, if you've read my journals (which tend to be composed primarily of lists and complaints), you'd know that they sorely need.

I'm working on an illustration of a Harpy Eagle for one of my classes. I read somewhere that Harpy Eagles have facial disks, like owls, as a result of convergent evolution. Unlike owls, though, Harpies create their disks by raising their feathers. When the feathers aren't raised, the Harpy has a noble profile.

Puget Sound is home to three pods of resident Orcas, numbering (in total) more than 80 of these very large ocean dolphins. The resident Orcas eat only fish and can be quite vocal, whereas transient Orcas eat all manner of sea mammals and are completely silent. (The things you can learn in class...) I made this little doodle while sitting in one of the Starbucks shops at SeaTac after my flight had been cancelled. The act of concentrating on my little painting was actually quite calming.

I found this image in one of the most amazing magazines ever, BBC Wildlife. A couple of months ago they did a feature story about Caracals.

I'm working on another set of illustrations for a different class, of the Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit. Extinct in the wild, this genetically distinct cousin of the Idaho Pygmy Rabbit lived in portions of Douglas County, Washington. The reasons for its genetic extinction are unknown, but it looks like it may have been a combination of factors including (but not necessarily limited to) habitat destruction and disease. The Idaho Pygmy Rabbit failed to gain federal endangered species protections last year, and because its range is - over time - being converted for agricultural use, it may eventually meet a similar fate.

Another magazine find, this time on a bumpy flight back to Spokane from Seattle. It was soothing to think about how I would approach this little doodle while we were being buffeted by crosswinds on approach.

All of these doodles are being done in my Moleskine sketchbook journal and I didn't spend more than 45 minutes to an hour on any of them... the paper isn't noted for being great watercolor paper, but for my purposes it works just fine.

Why did the Snow Goose cross the road?

2011-02-28T16:11:00.001-08:00

To visit a thousand of its closest friends...

I went birding this weekend in Skagit County with seven other enthusiastic classmates. The enthusiasm was necessary because IT. WAS. COLD. And snowy and icy... but we still had a good time looking at Bald Eagles, Northern Harriers, a Rough-legged Hawk, a Merlin, a Peregrine Falcon, Pheasant, American Wigeons (plus one Eurasian Wigeon thrown in for fun), Killdeer, a Kestrel, Dunlin, Green-winged Teals, Blue Herons, Snow Geese, Trumpeter Swans, a Winter Wren and one Spotted Towhee (dead, retrieved from the road by yours truly).

Then, because I like having wind-burned cheeks (NOT), I got up on Sunday and went for a short loop around the Union Bay Natural Area, where the highlights were six Great Blue Herons and a couple of Golden-crowned Kinglets (who always make my day).

Yesterday evening and this morning I worked on a very preliminary value study of my next big project: a Harpy Eagle.

Stellar's Sea Eagle

2011-01-29T19:58:00.001-08:00

I was at the zoo today and saw the most amazing bird: the Stellar's Sea Eagle. You can't get a sense of the scale of this bird by the sketch, or the impressiveness of its beak (partly because it's foreshortened in this view), but it is amazing.

The Stellar's Sea Eagle is one of the largest eagles in the world by weight, but its measurements don't add up to the Harpy Eagle or the Philippine Eagle. Still, though, it's an impressive bird.

Doodled from this photo.

Let's call the whole thing off!

2011-01-27T18:02:00.000-08:00

I made it for 26 days before throwing in the towel - longer than an average New Year's diet, perhaps, but not very long in the grand scheme of things.

The problem? I'm bored. I think the project wasn't well-considered enough, because it's boring the snot out of me. I adore birds, and will continue to draw them here, but maybe a week is more than I want to spend on any one bird for now. That, and at the moment, I'm working on snapping turtle jaw anatomy, horse vertebrae, a rabbit skeleton and a nascent river otter illustration.

This is supposed to be the place for me to blow off steam, and any 365-day project in the future will have to take that into consideration. I still want to do one, just not this one.

Oh well. Lessons learned.

Atlantic Puffin: In Color

2011-01-26T22:41:00.001-08:00

What?! There's no Atlantic Puffin here!

For now.

This has been the day from H - e - double-toothpick, so I'm putting a placeholder here at 10:45 p.m. so I can fall into bed and get some sleep.

Yes, I know, I'm cheating... but I did say I could change the rules any time I wanted, right?

Bonus Bird: Harpy Eagle

2011-01-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

Dana was in Belize last week, and he got to feed a Harpy Eagle!

This is Panama. He's an education bird at The Belize Zoo.

Look at those talons. I learned last night that the longest talons on a bird of prey are the hallux and the inside front toe... because those are the ones they use to kill their food.

Note to self: stay away from Harpy Eagles in dark alleys.

Atlantic Puffin: Graphite

2011-01-25T20:38:00.000-08:00

Atlantic Puffin: Line Drawing

2011-01-24T15:45:00.000-08:00

Atlantic Puffin: Sketches

2011-01-23T22:17:00.001-08:00

Atlantic Puffin: Research

2011-01-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

Photo by Steve Garvie, via Wikimedia Commons

The Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) is a bird I've never seen in life. But I really, really want to see one. This is a bird I would be willing to travel to see, even though they live where it tends to get cold. It's not that they're rare, or that there's even anything that interesting about them... except that they're pretty, or at least distinguished looking. With their black and white plumage and colorful beak, they look like clowns that are slightly worried about something. Some folks might find that creepy, but I kind of like it.

Atlantic Puffins are seabirds, members of the auk family. They eat fish, primarily, and nest on rocky outcroppings next to the sea in the North Atlantic. It has some clever, if obvious, nicknames: "clown of the sea" and "sea parrot."

Puffins have fairly long lives, and can live up to 30 years. They live primarily at sea, but when it comes time to nest, they live in colonies and nest in burrows on cliff sides. Dad clears the burrow; both mom and dad incubate the eggs and care for the chicks until they fledge.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Digital

2011-01-21T13:47:00.001-08:00

Bonus Bird: Golden-crowned Sparrow

2011-01-21T13:35:00.000-08:00

Doodled because the Golden-crowned Sparrow is Spokane Audubon's "rare bird of the month" for January. (Rare bird for here, that is.)

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Detail

2011-01-20T20:13:00.000-08:00

OK, today is going to have to be a day where the victory is in showing up. This one was way more of a rush than I would have liked, but I've been up since 4:45 this morning (doing the weekly trek of planes, trains and automobiles to get from Seattle to Spokane), and I worked for much of the day.

I know, enough with the excuses already!

Here are the Chestnut-backed Chickadee's feet. As you might be able to tell (I know, it's tough), the bird has three toes facing forward, one facing back. The back toe, number 1, is called the hallux. This configuration of toes, anisodactyl, is common to songbirds. Before the year is out, I can guarantee that I'll be drawing at least two other foot configurations, probably more.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: In Color

2011-01-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Graphite

2011-01-18T10:25:00.001-08:00

Notice how yesterday I got the bird's eye a little bit too far back on his head? That's the nice thing about sticking with a subject for a few days: you can see what you've missed and try to figure out how to fix it.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Line Drawing

2011-01-17T19:05:00.001-08:00

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Getting to Know You

2011-01-16T09:06:00.000-08:00

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Research

2011-01-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

Photo by Greg7 on Flickr, via Wikipedia Commons

The Chestnut-backed Chickadee is, as its name suggests, a chickadee with chestnut-colored feathers on its back and under its wings. The mask/cap and throat are similar to the more familiar Black-capped Chickadee. (Their cousin, the Mountain Chickadee, has a white eye stripe.)

Like other chickadees, the Chestnut-backed Chickadee has a large head in proportion to the rest of its body, making it look kind of like a Weeble with a tail. They are small birds, 4 - 5 inches long, with small, black beaks and fairly long tails. Most of their diet is comprised of insects, but they will eat seeds and berries.

Chestnut-backed Chickadees live on the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Central California, and across northern Washington and Idaho. I saw them for the first time at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, near the Raptor Center; the folks at the Raptor Center keep some feeders full, and the feeders are routinely visited by nuthatches, chickadees, towhees and the ubiquitous sparrows. (This sort of begs the question, are they trying to tease the raptors? Perhaps not, since not all raptors like to eat songbirds; some would rather nosh on larger birds or mammals.)

Cooper's Hawk: Digital

2011-01-14T13:19:00.001-08:00

This week's photo references:

Portrait

Cooper's Hawk

Cooper's Hawk: Detail

2011-01-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

Cooper's Hawk: In Color

2011-01-12T14:50:00.001-08:00

Bonus Bird: Golden-crowned Kinglet

2011-01-12T12:55:00.000-08:00

The best part of deciding to become attuned to birds is that they just pop out of nowhere... not really, of course. They're usually around, but I'm more likely to see them now that I'm looking.

This is one of the surprises, a Golden-crowned Kinglet.

It snowed last night in Seattle, but the snow turned to rain and this morning was a slush-fest. I was running some errands, on foot, and I decided to walk up the viaduct from University Village. At the top of the hill on 45th I came across a small group of tiny (3 - 4 inches from beak to tail) birds with golden crowns.

I'm sure I looked like a complete idiot, frozen on the sidewalk staring into the shrubs, but it was so wonderful to see these goofy little birds go about their business. I was giddy, both from finishing my hill climb and from seeing a new-to-me bird. Whee!

Doodled from this wonderful photo.

Cooper's Hawk: Graphite

2011-01-11T19:07:00.001-08:00

Cooper's Hawk: Line

2011-01-10T23:19:00.001-08:00

Cooper's Hawk: Getting to Know You

2011-01-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

Cooper's Hawk: Research

2011-01-08T07:30:00.000-08:00

We have hawks in the yard: Sharp-shinned Hawks and Cooper's Hawks. They look very similar to one another, but the Cooper's Hawk is larger... we didn't know how much larger until we went to DC and saw the "Birds of DC" at the National Museum of Natural History.

Photo from Wikipedia.

The Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) is a medium-sized hawk that's very common at feeders. The one in our yard last year liked to sit on the fence right next to the tree where I have the finch socks.

Cooper's Hawks live year-round across the continental United States. Western birds are smaller than their eastern counterparts.

It's a crow-sized long-legged hawk that looks like its wearing pantaloons, with a long barred tail. Adults have red or orange eyes; juveniles have yellow eyes. As with many birds of prey, the female is about 1/3 larger than the male. Wings and tails are dark brown, underparts buffy with dark bars. Chest and pantaloons have reddish bars.

As you might suspect from their prevalence at feeders, the Cooper's Hawk feeds mainly on small songbirds, with some rodents added into the mix.

Northern Cardinal: Putting It Together

2011-01-07T07:30:00.000-08:00

Photo references for this week's doodles:

Bird doodle: http://www.flickr.com/photos/goellnitz/4719286326/

Beak detail: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aditithestargazer/3296420616/

Northern Cardinal: Detail

2011-01-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

That's one, seed-eating, finchy beak.

Northern Cardinal: In Color

2011-01-05T17:41:00.000-08:00

Northern Cardinal: Graphite

2011-01-04T20:20:00.000-08:00

I think my motto for the year will be "imperfect, but done" because sometimes that's as good as a person can get.

Northern Cardinal: Line Drawing

2011-01-03T13:31:00.000-08:00

Well, here's Mr. Northern Cardinal in all his glory.

Hopefully as this project gets underway I'll get organized enough to make a pen & ink version of these line drawings... but we're going to start slowly so as not to freak out the blogger...

Northern Cardinal: Getting to Know You

2011-01-02T11:38:00.000-08:00

Man, I feel like I haven't been to the gym in a while. Doodling is like that; if you don't do it for a little while you get rusty. And since I've been off from school, working and traveling I haven't doodled in a couple of weeks. Ouch.

Doing "Getting to Know You" sketches is a good way to get back into it. No pressure to do something beautiful, just trying to get an idea of how things work.

For the cardinal, I messed around in the sketchbook until I started seeing the shape of the bird. Cardinals, with their crests, make a distinctive teardrop shape if you catch them at the right angle.

The thing to remember about cardinals, or any crested birds for that matter, is that the crest will obscure the actual shape of the head (which is, I suppose, the point of having a crest). I'm not sure I'm getting it just yet, but it's something to be aware of.

Tomorrow: a line drawing.

Northern Cardinal: Research

2011-01-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

Photo by Ken Thomas, via Wikipedia Commons

The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is a medium-sized songbird found throughout the Eastern and Southwestern US and (oddly enough) in some places on the islands of Hawaii and Oahu (successful introduction). Both male and female have a distinctive crest and orange beak. The male is red; female is brown with red on her crest and wing and tail.

Cardinals live year-round in their range, but will move to avoid extreme temperatures or food shortages. They live in woodlands, swamps and suburbs. As with other feeder birds, the Cardinal is subject to predation by backyard hawks.

The Cardinal can be extremely territorial; if another bird enters a place the Cardinal thinks is his, the bird will be chastised and likely chased away. It is, apparently, not unusual for male Cardinals to attack their own reflections, at least during breeding season. Some of them have been observed doing this for hours at a time.

Cardinals have a distinctive song, sung by both males and females, which they use to attract a mate, in courtship and to lay claim to territory. Since songs are learned, there are regional variations.

The bird's diet consists primarily of seeds (look at the design of that beak!), but as with most birds, it also eats bugs and fruit.

Places to look for information about the Northern Cardinal:

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology site, All About Birds.

The Wikipedia article on the Northern Cardinal.

2011: Time for a New Blog Project

2011-01-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

When we were in DC I picked up a book, 365: A Daily Creativity Journal. I've been wanting to do a 365-day project for the last couple of years, but a) a whole year is a long time and b) I struggle with that kind of organization.

In other words, I'm starting something that I may be spectacularly ill-equipped to follow through on... sigh. We'll see how far this goes.

In his book, author Noah Scalin (of Skull-a-Day fame) says "The key to a successful daily project is deciding on a subject or medium that you will enjoy exploring for a year (pg. 7)."

I've been looking at birds here for a while and I'm still fascinated by them, so that seems like a good subject.

And I'm in a natural science illustration program this year, so why not combine the two to create a body of work?

Here's the project, as I see it right now:

Do 52 bird studies this year, taking a week to do each study.

I know what you're thinking -- that doesn't sound much like a 365-day project now, does it? Bear with me for a moment.

Last term in the NatSci program, we had a process and I'll be basing the "daily" part of the project on that process. If all goes according to plan, it will look something like this:

Saturday: research

Sunday: "getting to know you" sketches - loose, mostly gesture, for overall shape, or to study the interesting bits

Monday: line drawing

Tuesday: tonal drawing in graphite

Wednesday: color, either colored pencil or watercolor

Thursday: detail drawing - here's where you're likely to see lots of beaks, feet and eyes

Friday: put it all together digitally

That's it, for the moment. Since it's my project, I reserve the right to change the rules whenever I want. If I can keep it going for any length of time it should be a good experience, and maybe I'll even make a few things I like!

My first bird: the Northern Cardinal. I saw my first live one in DC, so it will be a new bird (for me) to start a new project in the new year.

Happy New Year!

Bird of Bones

2010-12-31T08:05:00.000-08:00

Last term in the UW natural science illustration program we drew skulls, chicken and muskrat. It was a really fun and interesting set of exercises, and a lovely change of pace from the invertebrates (not that I have anything against invertebrates... except that they're small and hard to see).

Apparently we'll get to do more of that in the winter, and I'm looking forward to it.

We spent an afternoon at the National Museum of Natural History while we were in Washington. They have a hall of bones, and it is amazing. (Which is more fascinating, skeletons or dinosaurs? It's a toss-up.)

I, of course, was interested in the birds:

A Cassowary skeleton. The Cassowary is a large flightless bird with a horn on its head. Sy Montgomery's chapter about Cassowaries ("Birds are Dinosaurs") in her book, Birdology, is a revelation.

Grebes are water birds with lobed feet - excellent swimmers. Unlike the Cassowary, they can fly, but they don't walk very gracefully because of the way their legs are constructed. Most birds perch/sit and walk or hop on their toes; the grebes tend to rest much farther back on their ankle joint. You can kind of see how it would just be easier for them to be in the water.

Want to see some really long legs? Check out the legs of the Secretary Bird:

And finally, the raven, with all its bits labeled. See the keel (sternum/breast bone)? That shape is for large breast muscle attachments. All birds have breast bones, but not all birds have keels. Birds with keels have larger breast muscles that allow flight; birds without, don't.

I know I'm easily amused, but isn't this stuff cool?

Paul Manship

2010-12-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

Perhaps best known for Rockefeller Center's "Prometheus," Paul Manship was a prolific 20th-Century American sculptor. These birds are a few of his works on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Smithsonian's description of the Shoebill contains this statement: "By exaggerating certain features or expressions, Manship also lets a little bit of their personalities peek through. This is especially visible in his gilded works, where the gold patina highlights the contours of the animal's forms and their precise surface details. Many of Manship's animal sculptures were originally created as part of his design for the gates of New York's Bronx Zoo."

You'll have to forgive me for quibbling, but the Shoebill is distinctive enough not to need much exaggeration...

Photo from Wikipedia.

Huzzah!

2010-12-12T15:09:00.000-08:00

Another bit from IBRRC, celebrating the rescue of another one of the beer-can collared bulls in the Bay Area.

Nice.

Tawny Frogmouth at the Adelaide Zoo

2010-12-09T12:06:00.000-08:00

How cool is that?! Hand-reared Tawny Frogmouths at the Adelaide Zoo hatched a chick... a very cute chick.

In Progress

2010-12-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

Mad dash to the finish line... Here's what's in the hopper right now!

Never done this before. Not bad for a first attempt:

I'm much better at carbon dust than I was 9 weeks ago...

Have to re-do this:

Drawing lots, just not lots of birds...

2010-12-05T14:31:00.001-08:00

... I'm in the thick of the end of the term. Still working on a chicken skull, a muskrat skull, a squid (reanimated and in perspective!) and a frog-legged leaf beetle (very cool bug, by the way). There's lots in the world to draw, and it seems that right now none of it is birds... sigh.

Accipiter striatus: Sharp-shinned Hawk

2010-11-29T04:00:00.000-08:00

It's been a blockbuster at the feeders over the last few days... I guess a foot of snow will do that for you.

Yesterday morning we had all the usual suspects, plus a Northern Flicker that huddled up to the house to try to keep warm (seriously, right there on the top step).

And then everybody cleared out, and fast, because a juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk showed up looking for some breakfast.

Sharpies are pretty common in this neck of the woods, especially around feeders where the pickings are anything but slim. This morning's hawk let me take a good look while he perched in our tree. He was a small hawk with dark wings and a barred tail, with yellow eyes. After he flew away I went looking through the guide books and Cornell's Birds of North America web site, and learned that juvenile Sharpies have yellow eyes and light eye stripes.

The hawk wasn't the only predator we had in the yard yesterday. Right after he left, Ghost the neighbor cat came to stay a while - I had to flush him out from under one of the chairs.

Agelaius phoeniceus: Red-winged Blackbird

2010-11-28T04:00:00.000-08:00

It was the strangest thing... I peeked out of the bedroom window just in time to witness a flock of Red-winged Blackbirds swarm the sunflower seed feeder.

They were here long enough for the Juncos to collectively wonder "What's up with that?" and then they were gone.

I've seen Red-winged Blackbirds in the yard before, but not until the end of the winter, and even then only one at a time. Usually I don't see them anywhere but at the pond, where there are tall grasses to hide and nest in.

Very strange, indeed.

Doodled from this photo.

Carpodacus mexicanus: House Finch

2010-11-27T04:00:00.000-08:00

Another of the feeder birds. We get these guys in droves... OK, not as many House Finches as Sparrows, but quite a few on a regular basis.

We get two finches in our yard -- these guys and the Goldfinches, and their diets are apparently different. The House Finches like crack... er... black oil sunflower seed, and the Goldfinches are mostly about nyjer thistle.

Doodled from this photo.

Passer domesticus: House Sparrow (female)

2010-11-26T04:00:00.000-08:00

Let me just state, for the record, that I am not a huge fan of the House Sparrow. They're marauders, they're piggy and they're not very nice to other passerines...

But...

If you set out food for everyone else, the sparrow will show up to the party. If you want to see anyone else, you have to expect to see the sparrows. Sometimes in large numbers.

And because I'm a fan of finches, grosbeaks, juncos and the occasional cowbird (though thankfully, those don't visit in large numbers), I put up with the sparrows.

Doodled from this photo.

Junco hyemalis oreganus: Oregon Junco

2010-11-25T15:00:00.000-08:00

My favorite of the winter birds, doodled from memory... as you should be able to tell because Oregon Juncos tend to be ground feeding birds, so not likely to be seen from this angle. There are other things wrong with this doodle, but you get the dark hood and lighter beak, which are two distinguishing features of the Oregon Junco.

When it gets colder than cold (as it has been lately), I throw black oil sunflower seed out the back door to the porch for the juncos. The sparrows and house finches duke it out at the feeder, but the juncos forage on the ground so I like to level the playing field just a little bit for them.

Baeolophus bicolor: Tufted Titmouse

2010-11-24T20:07:00.000-08:00

This doodle is from a photo in the latest issue of Birds & Blooms magazine, from the feature Eating Right Out of Your Hand.

I think I would keel over from surprise and delight if a wild bird landed on my hand, even if I am of two minds about the whole idea. (On the one hand, wild birds should be wild, instinctively wanting not much to do with me. On the other, wouldn't it be cooler than cool to be able to interact with a wild bird in this way?)

The other reason I would keel over: Tufted Titmice don't live where I live -- they're Eastern birds.

Finally! A Bird!

2010-11-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

OK, maybe not, but it used to be a bird... surely that counts for something.

Last night in class we got about 20 minutes to make a preliminary measured drawing of a chicken skull, from life, life-sized. This guy, nicknamed "zen chicken" for his peacefully rounded skull and beak, is about 3 inches wide.

Drawing Sea Shells by the Sea Shore

2010-11-11T13:19:00.000-08:00

OK, not exactly...

... except for the sea shell part.

Couple of studies for execution in other media. I think the top one will be scratchboard and the bottom stippleboard... we'll see.

Nature: A Murder of Crows

2010-10-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

Watched this on PBS last night... fascinating.

People who live with parrots know that the birds watch us, sometimes to figure out how to get along, and sometimes to figure out how to push our buttons. Apparently, some of our outside avian companions do it as well.

It's fairly common lore, I think, about the crows at the University of Washington. The story goes that crows that were captured for banding by a group of students started harassing those students, and kept at it for at least the length of the term. Now a wildlife biologist at the University is studying facial recognition in groups of crows.

(d)Evolution

2010-10-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

Last year around this time I was drawing people. Then I switched to birds. Now I'm working on shells and fossils.

I've discovered some things over the last year or so:

I have a lot more success if spend some time on getting-to-know-you sketches. These are the ones where the expectations are really, really low, the "Look, I just need to get a feel for how this thing works" sketches.

Like this, multiple views of the shell of a moon snail, a "predatory sea slug":

Most of the doodles on birdlydrawn are sketches of this type. There's no art anywhere in this kind of work. It's truly just to try to get an initial sense of what I'm looking at, to work out what's happening in space.

In my zoological illustration class, we're working on learning how to use carbon dust. So after the getting-to-know-you sketch comes the rough measured drawing in graphite, with some values.

Still not much going on in the way of artistic expression, but it's one step further along the continuum of understanding.

Next up: I'll take this view at 75% and experiment with carbon dust on a smaller sheet of paper. Then, I'll go to 125% and do the final version of the assignment.

Here's my other discovery: I usually have to do assignments like this twice, once to get a sense of where I'm going (get the rookie technical mistakes out of the way) and once to make some actual headway. In other words, my real beginner experience happens the second time around when I'm not freaking out about getting to the work and can actually pay attention to what I'm doing.

Slow on the uptake? Perhaps, but I prefer to think of it as being deliberate about my work. It's my experience after all, and this is how I get the most out of it.

Sitta canadensis: Red-Breasted Nuthatch

2010-10-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

Red-Breasted Nuthatches (along with their cousins, the Pygmy Nuthatches) are some of my favorite birds in this region. I tend to see them in the fall and spring, with the chickadees and woodpeckers, which leads me to believe that they may summer in the mountains and come to the basin for winter.

They're gregarious and social, and right now they're major players in the festival of songbirds in the parks.

What I love about them is that if you hear that they're close, you can stop for a few moments to get a look, and almost invariably, one scout will come down from the branches to see who you are and what you're up to. I don't know if the scout is the one who picks the short end of the straw or if it's the most outgoing bird of the group, one that might actually be interested in figuring out what's going on.

Either way it's kind of cool.

Doodled from this photo.

Aix galericulata: Mandarin Duck

2010-10-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Mandarin Duck (Aix galericulata) is a medium-sized perching (tree nesting) duck. Although closely related to the Wood Duck (on of my personal favorites, especially this time of year), the Mandarin lives in Asia.

I wonder what purpose those "sails" on the wings serve, or rather, if they serve any purpose beyond decoration...

A Year of Birdly Drawn

2010-10-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

"I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day -- the invocations and benedictions of the Earth. I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place.

I started BirdlyDrawn a little more than a year ago. My family (Dana's side and my side) was going through some upheaval. I was in the process of leaving art school because the amount of focus required was too great for the challenges of my life at the time. I had just left a job that - after 15 years - had left me sick and broken down.

I needed to draw -- it's better than therapy, for sure -- and I needed a way to add some focus to my life.

So I turned to birds.

My attention was not misplaced.

A few months ago I became the editor of Spokane Audubon's newsletter, The Pygmy Owl.

Next week, I start a natural science illustration program at the University of Washington.

BirdlyDrawn has helped me (and will, I hope, continue to help me) change my focus. It has unearthed possibilities that I didn't know existed a year ago...

Where it will eventually lead, I have no idea. But I'm grateful for the path I'm on now and looking forward to finding out where it will go from here.

Falco mexicanus: Prairie Falcon

2010-10-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

This month's "Bird of the Month" for the newsletter was the Prairie Falcon. They look a little bit like Peregrine Falcons, but their malar strips are narrower, their underparts are more buff-colored than rust, and they've got dark axillars (wingpits!).

Their range is pretty much the entire Western US, with a tiny bit of Canada and Mexico at the far north and south. They thrive in areas that have both cliffs (for nesting) AND plains (for hunting ground squirrels); we've got those conditions in spades in this part of the world. They're studied extensively at the The Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area in Southwest Idaho.

Doodled from this photo.

The Classification of Birds

2010-09-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

As much as I enjoy birds, I'll never make the mistake of thinking that I know better for them than they know for themselves, that any of them would be better off living in my world than in their own (except under the most special of circumstances). See, I've got an informal system of classification for birds that accomplishes one very important thing: it keeps me from thinking of them in anthropomorphic terms.

In my way of thinking any bird can be classified in one of three ways:

Those that would like nothing more than to get and stay far away from me. That group is primarily passerines and waterfowl.

Those that would like nothing more than to kill and/or eat me, given the right circumstances. For most birds (scavengers, most raptors, corvids), that consideration is limited to what would happen if I dropped dead in the street. There are birds that would think nothing of attacking/killing me if I were to get too close to their nests... or maybe if they're just in a bad mood (it may not be emotion like we experience it, but don't think for a second that a bird doesn't have an emotional life)... like Snowy Owls or any of the ratites.

Parrots. Most of the parrots I've met (all hatched in captivity) actually like the company of people, or at least don't mind us... especially if we're willing to hand over a walnut or two.

I would put the bird in today's doodle in the second group, the would kill/eat you as soon as look at you group, but not because it's an omnivore (it is, by the way... most birds are).

The Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) is a ratite, a large, flightless bird related to Ostriches and Emu, from Indonesia, Australia and New Guinea. It's fairly tall and has a sharp claw that it can use for defense. Oh, right, and the horn on its head... please, how could this bird not be descended from dinosaurs? The Cassowary doesn't eat large game, so technically I should probably put it in the first group... but it's capable of killing a person. In other words, if you chase it it'll run, but you'd better watch out if it decides to turn on you.

Best just to give this guy a wide berth.

Doodled from this photo.

The Owl and the Woodpecker

2010-09-27T15:46:00.000-07:00

I checked out a wonderful book at the library last week... so wonderful that for a couple of nights I just sat with it and made doodles from the photos.

The book: The Owl and the Woodpecker: Encounters with North America's Most Iconic Birds, by Paul Bannick.

Drawing from photos isn't ideal, I'll admit, but it does allow you to really look at the bird in ways you might not be able to in the wild. For one thing, getting close enough to your subject to be able to do anything but catch its gesture might not be possible.

And then there's the emotional response... I saw Brown Pelicans for the first time on my vacation last week and they were so beautiful that all I wanted to do was watch them for as long as they were there without having to futz with trying to draw them, or digging out the camera.

I'm not sure I'll ever outgrow that... I'm not sure I ever want to outgrow that... it's good to be flat out amazed every now and again, I think.

Cathartes aura: Turkey Vulture

2010-09-12T16:23:00.000-07:00

Last weekend on our hike we saw this bird:

You can tell by his silhouette that he's a turkey vulture (note the black body with lighter wings), but you can't really see much of his head, which would be the real giveaway.

They're large birds, with a wingspan of up to 72 inches. They're not raptors; they're scavengers that eat carrion almost exclusively. They summer in our neck of the woods, so it could be that the vulture we saw was either starting his fall migration or getting ready to.

These are not attractive birds, but because they eat carrion it makes sense that their heads would be mostly featherless.

Doodled from this photo.

Phoebastria immutabilis: Laysan Albatross

2010-09-11T20:54:00.001-07:00

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology sends a quarterly magazine to its members, Living Bird Magazine. The latest issue's feature is about the albatrosses of Midway Island, also known as Gooney Birds.

Did you know that there's a giant mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean?

Well, there is, and these albatrosses, who scoop their prey from the surface of the ocean, are known to take plastic instead of squid. Then they take the plastic and feed it to their young, who are in danger of starving to death because their stomachs are so full of plastic junk that they don't have room for food.

Photo by Flickr user angrysunbird.

That, friends, should be all the impetus we need to cut down on our consumption and usage of plastic.

Gooney bird doodled from a photo by Stephanie Batzer.

Fish Lake

2010-09-06T14:06:00.001-07:00

Happy Labor Day! Today we went on a 7-mile hike starting at the Fish Lake trailhead of the Columbia Plateau Trail in Cheney, WA.

We were originally headed to Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge, but we got turned around on the highway and found ourselves at Fish Lake. It was a beautiful day, so why not?

Turns out there was plenty to see on our mostly flat, paved trail, including chipmunks, some kind of water rodent (water vole?), frogs and many birds.

I don't know who this is... a House Wren, perhaps?

This guy is a turkey vulture. I'd blow up the photo so you could see his reddish head, but it's too fuzzy (the photo, not his head).

Columbia Plateau Trail State Park is a rail-bed trail (that explains why it's mostly flat and paved) that, according to the web site, "... traces the original path of the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railroad."

As you might expect, we saw and heard several trains over the course of our walk.

Sketchy Chinstrap

2010-09-02T08:35:00.000-07:00

This is just a prep doodle for a bigger version of the Chinstrap Penguin... the bigger version didn't pan out (to put it nicely).

... sometimes I can draw things that look like things... Sometimes, not so much. That's OK, it's still a fun way to spend the evening.

The only bird drawings I've done lately...

2010-08-31T20:17:00.000-07:00

... have been small accents in the Audubon newsletter, black and white for the print version.

A Black-chinned Hummingbird,

The rare bird (rare for here, anyway) sighting of the month, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak (he's perched on a box housing a call for backyard bird data),

and a nuthatch of indeterminate origin, to help announce a field trip.

I'm seriously jonesing to do more drawing, but for now these will have to do.

Glaucidium gnoma: Northern Pygmy Owl

2010-08-05T18:29:00.001-07:00

The Northern Pygmy Owl is a small, forest-dwelling, small-mammal/small-bird-eating owl.

Small as in 6-7.5 inches from head to tail. It's diurnal, meaning it usually hunts at dawn and dusk. It nests in holes, though it doesn't make its own holes; it uses empty woodpecker holes and/or old stumps. And they're tough. Floyd Scholz says in his book, Owls, that "Often they kill their next meal only to find that it is too big and heavy to carry off to a perch" (pg. 163).

When they're relaxed, pygmy owls look like puff balls with long tails, and it seems to me from the photos I've seen that they usually look like they're a little bit pissed off.

Pygmy owls have a set of "false eyes," feather patterns at the backs of their heads. The only photo I've found that shows them clearly is this one, by Anne Elliott:

The following video is a clip from Oregon Public Broadcasting's Oregon Field Guide, featuring a biologist tracking pygmy owls in a most unexpected place: Forest Park, a green space just at the edge of Northwest Portland.

Inexpertly and mercilessly over-doodled from this photo by Dominic Sherony.

One more thing of note: Spokane Audubon Society's newsletter is The Pygmy Owl, and I am the new editor.

Psaltriparus minimus: Bushtit

2010-08-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

Another Portland bird, one that I'd never seen before... didn't know it existed, even.

I was enjoying breakfast with my mom when we noticed some really small birds in her lilac bush. Then there were more... and more... and then it got ridiculous. A flash mob of tiny birds.

Very social... lots of noise. There, and then gone, as quickly as they appeared. (Actually, they moved briefly to my mom's giant butterfly bush before they went away.)

We watched them as long as they were around and then dove into the field guide.

They were bushtits. Described as "drab" and "nondescript," they're gray-ish. And small... very small.

This doodle looks like it's a "Black-eared" bushtit, and thus not a sample of what I saw in Portland - they live in the southern US.

Doodle based on this photo.

Athene cunicularia: Burrowing Owl

2010-08-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

The Wikipedia article for the Burrowing Owl says the owl "... is a small, long-legged owl found throughout open landscapes of North and South America."

My field guide says "Note long legs."

The burrowing owl lives, you guessed it, in burrows. It's active during the day, and yes, it has long legs.

This doodle is based on a photo of Beaker, an ambassador for the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of BC.

Neat-o.

Tyto alba: Barn Owl

2010-08-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

I was flipping through a great picture book yesterday, Eyewitness: Eagles and Birds of Prey, and saw a wonderful photo of a juvenile barn owl. I had to try to draw it:

Owls are fantastic, with their facial disks, their not-exactly aligned ears and their silent flight. The Barn Owl is, according to Wikipedia, "the most widely distributed species of owl, and one of the most widespread of all birds." They live on every continent except antarctica.

The barn owl does not hoot. Instead it shrieks... Hmm... kind of like another bird I know...

Charadrius vociferus: Killdeer

2010-08-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

The killdeer is a medium-sized plover, and since we see them around here (the Inland Northwest), it's a bird I'm likely to call an upland sandpiper.

The last one I saw clearly was in Portland, while I was on a walk with my mom. I got a look at a tail while one flew away - their backsides are pretty flashy, you know. Turns out the killdeer we saw belonged to a small family group that took up residence in the Christian High School's field.

Killdeer use the "broken wing" technique to lure predators away from their nests, which, according to my grandmother, can be anywhere they see fit to lay an egg.

I'm a big fan of their giant eyes... pretty bird.

P.S. Pardon the giraffe.

Rynchops niger: Black Skimmer

2010-06-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

Odd one, this bird, and I'm not just talking about the angle you're looking at him. Look at that bill: the lower is much longer than the upper, and if you see it from the front, it's kind of blade-like, so the skimmer can drag it at the water's surface to feed.

Super cool, neat-o.

Doodled from this photo.

Charadrius wilsonia: Wilson's Plover

2010-06-28T21:10:00.000-07:00

I love plovers and sandpipers. They're a gas to watch as they run along the shoreline. Actually, we have a few in this neck of the woods that don't seem to need a shoreline, but that's another story.

The Wilson's Plover is a coastal shorebird whose range extends up much of the U.S. east coast, and the Mexican west coast. According to the Wikipedia article, they like crabs, but also eat insects and marine worms.

Oh, and guess where they're nesting right now?

Right... the Gulf Coast.

Doodled from this photo.

Notebook #2

2010-06-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

I finished my second birdlydrawn notebook yesterday. Whee!

Here are some of the sketchy bits that didn't make it to the blog...

You can sort of tell it's a waxwing... right?

Pinecones are endlessly fascinating... even if they're not birds.

I was working on this motmot's bill -- notice the jagged edges, like "teeth." The bill turned out okay, but the rest of the head... not so much.

Bernini, Bernini... always Bernini.

Bernini with a brush pen.

Osprey in the Park

2010-06-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

"Look, it's an eagle!"

That's what the six-year-old boy at Manito was yelling as the osprey flew wide slow circles around the pond.

Osprey are called fish eagles, and seahawks, but they're actually their own species.

Pretty cool.

C-Span Documents Oiled Bird Cleaning

2010-06-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

Excellent, longer clip from C-Span about the oiled bird cleaning operations in Louisiana.

More detailed than the CNN videos, with good background about Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research and International Bird Rescue Research Center.

Calidris alba: Sanderling

2010-06-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

A small sandpiper commonly seen chasing waves at the waterline.

Yet another gulf bird, commonly seen these days in varying degrees of distress due to oiling.

Doodled from this photo.

Ripple

2010-06-11T17:02:00.000-07:00

Kelly Light, an illustrator from Long Island, figured out what we can do to help with the gulf.

Check out ripplesketches@blogspot.com.

If you donate $10 to either The International Bird Rescue Research Center or The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, and then send a copy of the confirmation to Kelly at ripplesketches@verizon.net letting her know which doodle you're interested in, the artist will sign it and send it to you.

In the brief, Kelly says, "It's not about the politics or the corporation. It's about the animals. It's about not feeling helpless in the face of an overwhelming disaster. We're illustrators. We don't lose touch with that kid inside who marvels at the creatures who swim below and fly above the sea. We draw them. We are inspired by them. We need to help them... The subject should pertain somehow to the Gulf - the oil spill - the oceans and the creatures that live in it and around it."

There are some wonderful images at the blog.

I submitted these doodles:

P.S. The turtle "sold" early!

CNN Guest Pelican

2010-06-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

Interesting video from CNN featuring live animals and a veterinarian discussing effects of oil on wildlife.

Confession: I've always thought that pelicans were odd looking, but after watching this one I think I'm in love.

In other parts of the blogosphere, Jay Holcomb, executive director for International Bird Rescue Research Center, responds to controversy surrounding the washing of oiled birds. I'm relieved to hear that the person with decades of experience with birds affected by oil spills still believes we should wash them in order to give them the potential for a long productive life.

Platalea ajaja: Roseate Spoonbill

2010-06-09T23:54:00.000-07:00

The roseate spoonbill is one of the birds that stands to be affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A large wading bird, part of it's range is the east coast of Texas and part of Florida.

Its distinguishing features can be found in its name: light-to-deep pink feathering on body and wings, and that long, spatulate bill.

I had dinner the other night with a former colleague. He lives in New Orleans and before his current employment he worked for an oil company.

He believes that the spill is this bad because of either a failure of imagination or a lack of will on the part of BP. According to my friend, technology exists that would have either prevented the explosion in the first place -OR- allowed them to cap the well more quickly. Apparently these technologies are in use in other parts of the world... in other words, they're neither new nor experimental.

Huh. That's food for thought.

More food for thought: It's impossible to keep birds away from the oil once it's in the water. When healthy, birds are difficult to catch, and they're committed to their habitats. Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society, said, "Prevention is key with oil. Once it is spilled there is little we can do. Once the leak has stopped and the clean-up has progressed, we can think about restoring the lost bird populations."

Still more food for thought: I'm a fan of the idea of washing oiled birds, but maybe I'm too soft-hearted. According to one scientist, Less Than 1% of Oil-Soaked Birds Survive. Because damage caused by ingesting oil causes a slow, painful death, this scientist recommends euthanizing oiled birds rather than cleaning them.

Doodled from this photo.

Black-headed Grosbeak, day 2...

2010-06-08T14:16:00.000-07:00

... or, further proof that I am not a watercolorist.

Despite my ineptitude, you get the idea. When I'm gazing at the feeder full of sparrows and the occasional house finch, this big(ger) dash of orange and black makes me sit up and take notice.

Pheucticus melanocephalus: Black-headed Grosbeak, day 1

2010-06-07T22:46:00.000-07:00

Last week I saw an immature male black-headed grosbeak at one of the feeders. Today it was an adult male. He seemed generally unconcerned about much, which might have eventually become a problem as we had a hawk visit the yard today for a snack (here's hoping he picked up a sparrow instead of any of the finches).

Their bills are finchy - big, seed-eating bills. About the size of a starling, black-headed grosbeaks belong to the same family as northern cardinals. They summer in our neck of the woods

This is the initial doodle - look for color tomorrow.

Doodled from this photo.

Birdchick and the AP Get It.

2010-06-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

I hate what's going on in the gulf. Even more than that, I hate that there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I hate it when I read that the BP CEO "wants his life back." (Right. I'll bet the families of those 11 rig workers would like their lives back.) Sorry, buddy, but I'd rather like it if you didn't get your life back... not for a long, long time.

I'm not the only one, thankfully. Here's a link to an excellent post by Birdchick. Go read the whole post. Here are a couple of highlights:

"... we need to stay on task and hold those responsible for this apparently unstoppable mess accountable for their actions–specifically, not having a plan in place to stop a spill of this magnitude should it ever happen."

Photo by Charlie Riedel/The Associated Press

"... Enough of everyone giving carefully worded and not so carefully worded statements of dismay and apologies without taking responsibility. I want President Obama to channel some Samuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a Plane in dealing with BP. I want an immediately assembled “think tank” of the world’s underwater engineering experts, wildlife experts, middle school and high school science fair winners and the entire staff of MythBusters to pitch ideas on how to stop the leak."

A giant amen to that.

Here's a link to another powerful post, this one about the "anthropomorphic empathy" generated by the sight of a living bird covered in oil, on the Lens blog of The New York Times.

Wrong on so many levels...

2010-06-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

Photo: Office of LA Gov. Bobby Jindal and Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness

It's a cat-eat-bird, bird-eat-bird or person-eat-bird world out there, but it should not ever be a humanity-oils-bird-until-bird-suffocates-or-drowns world, or a humanity-leaves-lead-around-so-birds-can-swallow-it-and-die-a-slow-painful-death-by-poison world.

What the hell is the matter with us?

New Yard Sign

2010-06-03T08:58:00.001-07:00

I wonder if the neighborhood cats are smart enough to differentiate between sparrows and finches... probably too much to hope for...

Right now, though, the sparrows at the feeders outnumber the finches by a measure of about five to one, so if there is any cat-on-bird action, its likely the victim will be a sparrow.

Lest you think I'm a horrible person for promoting cat-on-bird violence, let me say this: it's best not to get sentimental about sparrows, at least not house sparrows (the ones that visit my feeders). House sparrows aren't endemic to this part of the world (and when I say "part of the world" I mean this continent), but they thrive because they're highly adaptive to human environments. They're not covered by the migratory bird treaty. They're mean little buggers. If you put food out for finches, grosbeaks, flickers, nuthatches, juncos, etc., the sparrows will take full advantage. And if Ghost the neighborhood cat happened to snack on one, there would be five more to take its place.

The James Dean of Birds

2010-05-29T16:29:00.000-07:00

Yet another corvid, the black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia): haughty, scrappy, voracious and omnivorous. This bird simply doesn't care what you think. He'll sit in the middle of the street for dinner, and if he's feeling nervy, will just make you go around.

From some angles it looks like the black-billed magpies feathers are all black, but if they catch the sun the right way they look kind of blue-green.

Doodled from this Flickr photo.

Carpodacus mexicanus: House Finch

2010-05-28T04:00:00.000-07:00

These guys live around here. They're not as flashy as the goldfinches or as, ahem, assertive as the sparrows.

They won't feed in our yard unless we put out black oil sunflower seeds. I don't know if they don't like nyjer thistle, or they don't like goldfinches, but they won't use the socks.

Now that we have a feeder right outside the back door filled with black oil sunflower, the house finches have been making appearances in droves.

Yay!

Doodled from this photo on quinet's Flickr photostream.

Not Ready for Primetime: Crested Tern

2010-05-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I start a doodle, and for whatever reason I set it aside without making an effort to finish it.

Usually it's because I get so frustrated with the way it's turning out... sometimes, I start working on a doodle that gets so kerfuffled it makes the doodles in my meh category look like masterpieces.

And sometimes I go back to the doodle and it doesn't look all that bad. I'm still not going to finish it, but looking back on it I'm not quite sure why I stopped.

This is one of those doodles. I think I probably gave up because the arrangement of his wings was really hard to see and it was giving me fits.

Ah, well. Live and learn.

Cyanocitta stelleri: Steller's Jay

2010-05-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

I love corvids. They're smart, brassy, obnoxious in a birdy way.

Steller's Jays are western birds, and along with their cousins the Blue Jays, they're the only North American jays with crests. These birds can be kissin' cousins; where their territories overlap, they may interbreed.

They feed on whatever they can find, including garbage. Apparently, jays have a dark side as well... they're not above robbing and killing.

Doodled from this photo on Wikipedia.

Love Happens?

2010-05-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

I like romantic comedies... a lot. Unfortunately, Love Happens was neither romantic nor funny.

And there was some really awful treatment of a bird in it.

A cockatoo. Some variation on a sulphur-crested cockatoo. Not a lesser, like B. More like this one, a bigger cousin native to Australia (Cacatua galerita), photo from Wikipedia Commons:

In the movie, one of the main characters, in a "if you love something, set it free" moment, takes the big cockatoo to the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest and lets the bird fly off.

There are so, so many things wrong with that scene, two of the big ones being:

Cockatoos aren't native to the Pacific Northwest; and

Most birds raised in captivity don't know how to survive in the wild.

In other words, it is likely that if that character's fit of weepy sentimentalism had been a real-life moment, it would have been a death sentence for the bird.

Look, I don't think movies have to be completely realistic to be good. But releasing a non-native pet parrot into a wilderness situation is beyond unrealistic... it's inappropriate. A pet parrot is raised to be imprinted to people (unless it was wild-caught, which is a completely different story). If you live with a pet parrot who was hatched into a human environment, as the human part of its flock it is your responsibility to provide for the bird in a human environment. If you don't want to do that, it's your responsibility to find someone who is willing.

(And yeah, I understand that there are people in the world who believe that no parrot should be a pet - all parrots should be allowed to be free in their native habitats. More power to them. My point here is that once that human-bird imprint has been made, it's really difficult to unmake.)

I was mortified by this scene, and even more mortified that the writers/producers/director apparently didn't question it as a plot point. Not just because it's an irresponsible act, but because a) it didn't do much to advance the story and b) it made some of the characters even less sympathetic. I turned off the DVD.

The parrot I live with, Bernini, was sitting with me on the couch. I took the DVD out of the player and told her that we would never make her fend for herself in the wild... even if she sometimes sorely tempts us with her bratty behavior.

Doodle B(ug)

2010-05-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Dana and Lilo went for a walk while I stayed behind with B to watch the second game of the subway series (Yankees vs. Mets).

Actually, B doesn't watch TV. She sits on the back of the couch so she can see out the picture window. Watching the world go by seems to be far more entertaining to Bernini than Major League Baseball. Who knew? (Maybe she was disappointed that the Yankees weren't playing very well... I know I was.)

She sat in a patch of sunlight and relaxed for a few minutes... just long enough for me to do a muddy little drawing.

Why did the quail cross the road?

2010-05-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

Huh... I have no idea... and I'm not sure the quail did either, because he was sitting in the middle of the road, not in much of a hurry to go anywhere, despite the fact that my car was barreling at him at, well, faster than he could run.

Good thing my brakes work, is all I have to say. (Well, that, and it's a good thing for me no one was following me at the time.)

California quail (Callipepla californica) doodled from this flickr photo.

--*--*--

Coincidentally, I've doodled a California quail before, in a post from late last October. There's been a little bit of improvement since then... I still have miles and miles to go before I can produce consistently decent work, but I've improved a fair amount in the last seven months of doodling.

Whee!

AP Video: Cleaning an Oiled Pelican

2010-05-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

Also interesting:

Oiled Wildlife Care Network blog: The Definition of Oiled Wildlife. With birds it can be much more obvious than with other wildlife.

Anas platyrhynchos: Mallard

2010-05-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, the local paper published a photo of a mallard hen nesting in the midst of a group of tulips outside an office building in downtown Spokane. The newspaper, in its infinite wisdom, decided to publish the address where the duck was nesting.

Sure enough, while mama mallard was on a constitutional, some less-than-upright individual vandalized the mama's nest.

She came back and laid a couple more eggs. As of this morning, she was still incubating.

The photographer has nicknamed mama mallard "Tulip." Interested parties have taken to leaving small cups of water and duck food for her.

Hopefully, Tulip's remaining eggs will hatch and the ducklings will safely make their way to the river a couple of blocks from her nest.

Mallard duckling doodle based on a photo by Flickr user Raj the Snapper.

Gallinago delicata: Wilson's Snipe

2010-05-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

The Wilson's Snipe (Gallinago delicata), a shorebird that lives in marshes and bogs, lives around here year-round, though I have yet to seen one. They sink their bills into mud and water and feel around for food.

Take a look at the placement of the eye. I screw up lots when I'm drawing, but the odd placement of the snipe's eye, that's for real.

Interesting factoid (from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology): "The long bill of the Wilson's Snipe is flexible. The tips can be opened and closed with no movement at the base of the bill. Sensory pits at the tip of the bill allow the snipe to feel its prey deep in the mud."

A bird with "fish lips"... Cool!

Doodled from a photo on Wikipedia.