Let's call the whole thing off!

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

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?

Atlantic Puffin: Graphite

Atlantic Puffin: Line Drawing

Atlantic Puffin: Sketches

Atlantic Puffin: Research

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

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Detail

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

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Graphite

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

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Getting to Know You

Chestnut-backed Chickadee: Research

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

This week's photo references:

• Portrait


• Cooper's Hawk

Cooper's Hawk: Detail

Cooper's Hawk: In Color

Cooper's Hawk: Graphite

Cooper's Hawk: Line

Cooper's Hawk: Getting to Know You

Cooper's Hawk: Research

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.