Extraordinary

On Sunday, a beautiful sunny spring day, I set out to walk to Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery, a mere two miles from my house. A block from home I saw a bird at the top of a spruce and whipped out my binoculars to see what it was. I was thrilled to see what I thought was a Bullock's oriole and stopped to do a quick sketch so that I could confirm the identification when I returned home. While sketching I heard a bird making an unfamiliar call over and over. And over. At first I thought it might be the oriole but soon followed the sound across the street. The bird looked very much like a northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos), a very common bird in my area. The thing is, mockingbirds sing other birds' songs, usually belted out in ever-changing medleys, delivered in a style that rivals that of Ethel Merman. Singing one call over and over isn't anything I've noticed one doing before. I sketched it, just in case I was wrong, and as I finished drawing, the mockingbird began to sound like a mockingbird. You can see in the sketch that both birds were quite puffed up. It was cold and the sun was just beginning to warm things up. Mockingbirds eat insects, which were probably waiting for some warmth before starting to buzz about, so I think it was as if that mocking bird just hadn't had that first cup of coffee yet.

Oh, when I got home later and looked up Bullock's oriole (Icterus bullockii), I was surprised to find that I'd most likely seen a Hooded oriole (Icterus cucullatus) instead. Both occur in my area but the Bullock's is more common and that's what I was expecting to see. I was pleased that my drawing helped me sort out the difference!

Fungi won't be around much longer

I've been enjoying seeing all of the lovely images of birds but thought I'd mix things up a bit with a little sketch I did of Helvella acetabulum, one of our spring fungi. The end of our fungi season is fast approaching. It's so very short! This fungus is currently fruiting in several parts of Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery, a lovely place with many old Coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia), a tree these fungi seem to get along with very well. Spores puffed out in a light cloud as the air moved around the fungus. The veins are a lighter color than the cup but the sun was shining into the cup, making the cup walls translucent and the heavier veins opaque.

Helvella

Helvella lacunosa are a fairly common fungus in northern California that seem to fruit longer than most. The fruiting bodies are quite sturdy and persist for a good long while. I'm told that they fruit with conifers but I find them mostly in association with one of our native trees, coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia). Helvella don't have gills or pores. Rather, they produce their spores on the upper surface of the wrinkly cap.

I had collected several of these, with caps in various shades of gray and black, planning to do several watercolor sketches. They languished in the refrigerator for over a week and today, when I finally got around to sketching, they were rather old and funky. Every time I moved one, or opened the container, spores swirled up, up and about the room. It was sort of like a dust storm. Blggghhh! They're still fruiting so tomorrow I'll try to find some that are a bit fresher.  Apparently they're edible. I've seen several suggestions of ways to cook and eat them while reading about fungi online lately. Not that I'm going to eat them myself! But I did lay them to rest in my backyard. We have a valley oak (Quercus lobata), which is a poor mushroom host, but maybe I'll get some to fruit in my yard next season! My very own helvella garden! How cool would that be? Oh, the sketch of the black capped fungus was done with ball point pen and the color sketch was done in ball point and watercolor.