Monday, April 5, 2010

Quacking and Squawking - Maree

You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
- Chinese Proverb


Duck sketches in Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook 8" x 5.5"

As I was filling the bird feeders yesterday morning, I heard a terrible raucous and as I looked up, six ducks came flying over, quacking and chatting, sounding like a busy freeway in the sky. I managed to identify some South African Shell ducks and some Mallards. Peculiar that they were all flying together, but given the Mallard's tendency to mate with anything and anyone, it's probably not that surprising. But there again, what I thought was the Shell ducks might have been female Mallards.


Duck sketches in Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook 8" x 5.5"

This is done in my Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook, which, when opened, is too long for the scanner to cover both pages, therefore the two pictures.

6 comments:

  1. Beautiful pages, Maree. You have me laughing with Mallard mating traditions. When we lived on the lake in NY there were always great mallard combos to look at :)

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  2. Thanks PJ - they're always fascinating to watch at our local dams as well!

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  3. Great flight sketches! I have one of those little moleskins but have yet to use it. So small!

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  4. Lovely page spread and drawings - especially the one in the lead. YOur comments on the mating habits made me laugh - always an education here on Sketching in Nature

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  5. Thanks Vickie. I'm actually also starting to feel they're a bit small, but Moleskine has now brought out the Folio - Size A4 (12" x 8.5") which is quite a nice size and is landscape orientated.

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