Lizards - Not so easy! - Maree

“So you see! There's no end to the things you might know,
Depending how far beyond Zebra you go.”
- Dr. Seuss

I have a couple of Lizards living in my Bathroom court-yard garden and I often find them sunning themselves on the walls or the rocks and tree stumps. These cold-blooded reptiles eat insects such as ants, beetles, larvae and flies, so the ones we get around the house or game lodges are actually very welcome!

Being cold-blooded means that they don't have a control mechanism keeping their body temperature constant irrespective of their surroundings. They need the sun to warm their blood and provide them with energy to move and will remain mostly inactive on cold days and may hibernate in winter. There are no poisonous Lizards in southern Africa and South Africa is home to more than 200 lizard species, making it the richest country for lizard diversity in continental Africa.

The common lizard gives birth to live young, but other reptiles lay eggs. The lifespan of lizards is between 1 - 3 years.

I have tried to search the name of my lizards, but to no avail. There aren't even any pictures available on the internet. All I can find is that they are from the Suborder Lacertilia, but with no other information available. I'm going to call them my Common Lizards. Number one, I didn't know they would be so difficult to identify and, number two, so difficult to sketch! Never again will I say, "How difficult can this be?!" lol!

Kingdom : Animalia
Phylum : Chordata
Class : Sauropsida
Order : Squamata
Sub-Order : Lacertilia

Black-crowned Night Heron Juvi

Black-crowned Night Heron Juvi, a photo by PJBee on Flickr                                                                                 Great Egrets and Night Herons have been roosting of late in the trees surround a pond by our home.

This morning there were five egrets and a couple of herons but by the time I made it back out to sketch them the egrets were gone.

This juvi paid me no mind and posed beautifully. I should have had my scope as peering through bins then looking down to the paper was a bit challenging. You can lock a scope to one spot. I had to search for the bird each time I held the bins up :) Ah, but it's all part of the joy of sketching plein air!

Car sketching in Iowa

Car sketching in Iowa, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

I traveled recently in Iowa and had a chance to do some car sketching. The countryside was so lovely, even though a lot of the tree color had passed.

These are composite sketches done in my Pentalic Nature Sketch 7 x 5 inch spiral-bound pad with a Pitt sepia pen, with watercolor added later.

The weather was cool and crisp, the sun bright and colors vivid! Wonderful! By the way, I was a passenger ...please do not draw and drive!

~ Elizabeth Smith, temporarily in Iowa, but normally in Florida, USA

Last of the Basil - Lin Frye

Last of the Basil, a photo by linfrye on Flickr.

9" x 12"
Arches 140#CP

Fall weather has claimed almost all my flowers - but a few, especially those closest to the house and somewhat protected by south facing walls - still rally on a bit longer. My cinnamon basil is chock-full of seeds arranged in spires of rich purple that stand tall against leaves turning a fading yellow with smudges of purple. Once basil has bloomed, the energy of the plant goes into producing and protecting the next generation, thus,the leaves haven't the same rich flavor as they did in the summer. Still, those seedheads make a wonderful dried arrangement - as well as stores for next year's crop.

I was honored to be interviewed by Leslie Panfil from Hubpages:

http://lpanfil.hubpages.com/hub/artistlinfrye

Our orchard planting is coming along. The holes have been dug, trees and irrigation supplies received, invitations sent .... Tuesday's the big day so our fingers are crossed for good weather.

Here in the US we change our clocks tonight - turning them back one hour to 'standard time' - which will give us more daylight in the morning hours (good especially for school children waiting on street corners for school buses) - but will mean early evening darkness - Hard to believe how swiftly time is flying...

Hope your day is great!

Lin Frye
North Carolina

Cereus jamacaru - One-night-flower - Maree

Cereus jamacaru (Queen of the Night)
Classification: Cactaceae

Referred to incorrectly as Cereus peruvianus in South Africa.

The Peruvian Apple Cactus, Cereus repandus, is a large, erect, thorny columnar cactus found in South America as well as the nearby ABC Islands of the Dutch Caribbean. It is also known as Giant Club Cactus, Hedge Cactus, cadushi and kayush. With an often tree-like appearance, the Peruvian Apple Cactus' cylindrical gray-green to blue stems can reach 10 meters (33 ft) in height and 10-20 cm in diameter.

It flowers only once a year, normally in June, and the beautiful white or pink nocturnal flowers, with an intoxicating scent, remain open for only one night. It has been declared an 'unwanted' alien invader here in South Africa due to its fast-spreading habit.

This cactus is growing next to our staff quarters and Solly, our Mechanic, was highly upset when I told him I intended chopping it down. He managed to convince me (not that it took too much convincing!) to let it stay, promising that he will keep an eye on it and not let it spread. But as this plant is also spread by birds eating the seeds, it's inevitable that I will soon be removing it.

There is actually great confusion over the name of this cactus, as the name Cereus is used for various cacti. The species name, peruvianus, suggests that it is endemic to Peru, but that is a botanical error. This plant is actually endemic to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina.

Toad

Toad, graphite pencils.


Our Mr. Toad on our patio.

‘Could you kiss it?’, I asked my daughter with ‘The Frog Prince’ of the Brothers Grimm in mind.
‘No way’, my daughter replied, ‘I don’t need a pampered prince’.

Poor Mr. Toad.

He is clearly not in the right place at the right time.

Paula

www.mindfuldrawing.com

Belgium

Still life

Hi everybody,not sure if this counts as sketching in nature, but it's so long since  I posted that I decided to put it up.

Rhinos at Kromdraai - Maree

The only way to save a rhinoceros is to save the environment in which it lives, because there's a mutual dependency between it and millions of other species of both animals and plants.
- David Attenborough

Sketch in my Moleskine A4 Folio sketch-book

When taking my grand-children to Lanseria Airport, we pass by a game farm just a couple of kilometers from where I live (Gauteng, South Africa), and these two Rhino were grazing right by the fence, so I stopped and did a quick sketch. They didn't seem bothered by me at all, I was just on the other side of a rather rickety looking game fence, which I'm sure they could demolish with a step or two, should they so wish! And I was thrilled to see that they still have their horns, so many are being removed to thwart poachers in a conservation effort of these magnificent animals.

Sometimes we're lucky enough to see the Lions close-by the fence, but I've never left my car to try and sketch them!

That subtle something - Maree

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

W&N watercolour in small hand-made sketch-book with hand-crafted satin-finish Linen paper

Walking through our Blue gum bush a couple of months ago, looking for something to sketch, a leaf maybe, or a mushroom, I suddenly realised that RIGHT THERE, in front of me, was the sketching matter. I was surrounded by blue gum trees, and all I had to do, was paint them!

Sketching at Simpson Reef

Oregon Coast, USA: Oct 21, 2011

This is one of the best times of year to visit Simpson Reef. Year round there are always harbor seals here and a few sea lions, but at this time of year the California sea lions males are migrating and hundreds pause here for a rest. They breed far to the south of Oregon, but come north for a better food supply. Steller sea lions breed in a few locations along the Oregon Coast, but not here. But here we do get to see both sexes of Stellers and pups young enough to still be nursing.

A page from my journal -- a harbor seal at the top, a California sea lion lower left, and two pelican cormorants on a guano encrusted rock.


A harbor seal sleeps on an exposed portion of Simpson Reef. The tide is so low today that we even see starfish clinging to the wet rocks. At low tide there is plenty of room for all the seals and sea lions to haul out for a rest, but at high tide, space is at a premium. The harbor seals are forced to take to the water and often some of the sea lions do too.

Some of the rocks that ride above the high tide line are heavily frosted with guano by the end of summer. At variety of birds use the rocks: gulls, cormorants, brown pelicans, and sometimes we even see a peregrine falcon or a bald eagle. Fall rains will wash away the guano.

A visit with a snake

One morning at the beginning of September Chloe and I were near the end of an entertaining early walk at Howarth Park. As we wound our way along the last trail before reaching pavement and the parking lot I saw something long and black stretched across the path. I stopped and bent closer to look and was delightfully surprised when the snake, for that's what it was, coiled it's tail and waved it about, revealing a brilliant orange red underside. Amazingly, the snake stayed right where it was and I sat down to spend some time in it's company. If I moved too close (and it had to be really close!) the tail would come up in a tight coil and wave about a few times then remain poised in the air until I retreated. There was a tannish band around the snake's neck, and the jet black upper part of it's body was shiny, as if wet, not what I would have expected from a snake. Chloe and I stayed about a half hour.

Ring-necked snakes (Diadophis punctatus) are found throughout the United States and in parts of Mexico and Canada. Nocturnal and secretive, they're seldom seen during the day. They're mildly venomous but, as I found, not aggressive. The venom may help incapacitate the salamanders, worms, slugs and insects that they like to eat.

Most of the resources I found call this snake  Pacific ring-necked snake (Diadophis punctatus amabilis). However, there seems to be some disagreement as to whether the different subspecies of D. punctatus are really different from one another.

Find out more about these shy snakes:
CaliforniaHerps.com
Wikipedia
wildherps.com
eNature.com

Galahs

In Australian English (for non-Australian readers), a person may be called 'galah' when acting silly, probably because these birds, intelligent and curious, love playing and can be seen hanging upside down and pirouetting, all behaviours that may be perceived a bit eccentric to human eyes. Galahs - Eolophus roseicapilla. 

http://matteogrilli.blogspot.com