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.

Glaucidium gnoma: Northern Pygmy Owl

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.

Platalea ajaja: Roseate Spoonbill

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.

Who is that masked bird? Day 4

The Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra) is a large waterbird of the tropics. It catches its prey by plunge diving into schools of fish, sometimes from 100 ft. in the air!

P.S. Happy Earth Day!

Amaurornis phoenicurus: White-breasted Waterhen

To round out the week of birds of Thailand, here's a white-breasted waterhen. A member of the rail family, it lives primarily in lowland marshes. They are resident birds, but are known to move into areas to form new colonies.

Doodled from a photo on Wikimedia Commons.

New Category: "Meh"

Little break while I recover from a long weekend trip, get some work done, and lament the fact that my lovely husband had to make a quick trip to Belize this week.

I've created a new category, for those doodles with which I'm less than happy. "Meh," as in "an interjection, often an expression of apathy, indifference, or boredom." They can't all be masterpieces, after all (well actually, none of them are masterpieces, but I like some of them).

So if you're not all that enamored of a doodle, take a look at its categories... it very well could be that I'm not enamored of it either.

Dryocopus pileatus: Pileated Woodpecker

While I'm thinking about woodpeckers, here's the Pileated. Very common, but their range skirts right around Eastern Washington, so they're not so common around here.

An interesting thing (in addition to the structure of their skulls, their specialized tail feathers and the funky crest) about these woodpeckers is their feet. Lots of birds have four toes (like Bernini, for example), and their feet are classified by the position of the toes. Parrots have zygodactyl feet, meaning toes 1 (the hallux) and 4 point to the back, and toes 2 and 3 point forward.

It was thought for many years that woodpeckers have the same kind of feet (and Flickers, apparently, do), but not quite. When foraging on the ground, all woodpeckers use a zygodactyl arrangement of their toes. But when climbing, the fourth toes of some woodpeckers can pivot from back to side (or front) to allow the bird to keep a tighter grasp on the bark of trees. Those feet are classified as ectropodactyl. Pileated woodpeckers have ectropodactyl feet.

Very cool.

Doodled from a photo by jelleyman.

Cyanocitta cristata: Blue Jay

Oy. This one gave me fits. Certainly not the bird's fault... I have a harder time with birds I haven't seen in life, and this is one of those birds. Kind of a bummer, because he has one of those crests I like so much.

This is one of those drawings I probably wouldn't post, except that I want to be better about doing these drawings. Right now I'm shooting for quantity with the hopes that sometimes I'll get some quality.

Doodled from a photo on Benny Lin's Flickr photostream.

Phoenix II

This one is inspired by an actual bird: the Victoria Crowned Pigeon (Goura victoria).

Doodled from imagination.

Meditations on the Phoenix, Day 1

The phoenix is a mythical bird that appears in several diverse cultures, including ancient Greece and China. The phoenix lives a very long life, at the end of which it builds itself a pyre and immolates itself; its progeny rises from the ashes.

If you look at phoenix imagery from around the world, it runs the gambit from free-flowing gentle-looking birds to fierce fire creatures.

I've been wanting to explore phoenix imagery for a while, so I'll spend this week doodling different interpretations of the phoenix. I suspect it will mostly be a process of picking a head shape, a beak shape a body shape and feet, adding some fire and seeing where it all ends up... could be kind of fun.

Doodled from imagination, in honor of Phoenix the red-tailed hawk at Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation.

Buteo regalis: Ferruginous Hawk

Bit of an experiment today, with the white on black... only marginally successful, but an interesting project. (And hey, if you can't experiment on your blog, where can you?)

The Ferruginous Hawk is large (eagle-sized) American hawk. They can summer around this neck of the woods, but live year-round in the Southwest.

Doodled from an image posted at Wikipedia.

Buy a Duck Stamp, Save the Wetlands

Yesterday I read a post by Birdchick's husband, Non-birding Bill, that highlighted the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's duck stamps.

The painting for this year's duck stamp was created by wildlife artist Joshua Spies. They're $15, and serve as a duck-hunting license. But get this: 98 cents of every dollar spent on duck stamps goes to purchase or lease wetland habitat for protection as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Say what you will about the federal government, but this is a good deal for waterfowl, hunters and the rest of us.

For more information about duck stamps, check out the US Fish & Wildlife Service's Federal Duck Stamp Office.


Long-tailed Duck doodled from an image at Wikipedia.

P.S. Speaking of Ducks, Rose Bowl is today, University of Oregon vs. Ohio State. On behalf of my fabulous and talented brother, Go Ducks!