A gathering of lizards

Where the lizards gather

 I've read that Western fence lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis) tend to be loners, defending their territory fiercely. There's a rocky place at Howarth Park where I like to sit and watch lizards, birds, insects and the occasional California ground squirrel go about their business. In winter the lizards are tucked away under rocks and in the ground but when the sun warms up those rock, the lizards come out of hibernation.

Fence lizards and a skink hanging out

One morning in early spring I arrived just as the sun hit the rocks and was pleasantly surprised to find a gathering of several lizards andl Western skinks (Plestiodon skiltonianus) hanging (literally) together on the vertical face of the rock. As I watched a few more emerged from holes in the wall and within an hour most had dispersed and could be found hunting within view.

Western fence lizards easing out of a tiny cave in a big wall of rock

Entranced, I returned several mornings in a row. The first couple of days the gathering was large. The weather became unseasonable warm and by the time I arrived (between 7:30 and 8 a.m.) the lizards were already out hunting. The skinks appear to come out later than the lizards and I was usually able to see them straggle out, sun for a bit and then glide off for some breakfast. After a few days, the gathering was much smaller but when I looked closely I could see lizards and a few skinks scattered among the rocks, hunting and defending territory.

Sketching in the Game Reserve - Impala - Maree

The woods were made for the hunters of dreams,
The brooks for the fishers of song;
To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game
The streams and the woods belong.
~Sam Walter Foss

Not far from us, about 10km, is the Krugersdorp Game Reserve, one of my favourite places to visit. We often go to the restaurant they have there and it's great seeing all the animals along the way, about a kilometer drive through the Game Reserve till you get to the restaurant.

These Impala were grazing not far off the road and didn't even look up when I settled myself on the bonnet of my Landrover to sketch them. Other great sightings are the Giraffe, but they prefer to keep their distance and I've taken a couple of photographs, so that will have to suffice for a sketch. Also Kudu, Eland, Springbok, Blue Wildebeest, Gemsbuck and other small buck often graze close to the road. The Lions and the Rhinos are kept in separate enclosures, accessible by drive-through tours via a special gate.

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!

Jackrabbits in the cemetery

I almost never go sketching without Chloe. Even though she sometimes gets bored while I'm working, she always wants to go if I'm going. She seems to enjoy hanging out, at least for a while, and especially enjoys it if there's sun to bask in. One of the best things about walking with her is that she often leads me to the most interesting things to draw! With her fabulous ability to scent, she's led me to some subjects that I never would have found just by looking.

For a time this summer, large groups of songbirds gathered to forage and socialize in some trees in a cemetery near my house. I got up early each morning and walked over, sitting somewhere fairly inconspicuous to wait for them to arrive. They'd come in waves - first the juncos, then house finches, goldfinches, robins and, finally, crows.

One morning, as I waited, sketching Chloe, who is an excellent model when there's nothing else to draw, she grew increasingly excited, inching farther and farther away from where we sat. I was engrossed in my work and didn't really pay as much attention as I should have. Once I'd expanded my focus to the world and looked beyond the now trembling dog to see what had caught her attention so thoroughly, I was delighted to see two Black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) resting on a hillside just below the mausoleum, blending amazingly well into the surrounding nearly dry grasses and weeds. They rested quietly for a while then one bounced off over the hill while the other hare did a few leisurely calisthenics, took a dust bath and loped off in the same direction as her companion had traveled.

Sometimes All You Have is 20 Seconds - Maria Hodkins

I was washing dishes at the kitchen window and preparing dinner when I glanced out the window and saw a mule deer at my bird feeder, nibbling the sunflower seeds. I tiptoed to the back room quickly, grabbed my journal and a Graphitints pencil, and just sketched the outline of the deer as quickly as I could get it down. I knew I only had a few seconds before it would move on. Sure enough, it gave me only about 20 seconds as a sketch model, then backed off and joined its companion deer that was waiting in the wings.

I now only had a skeleton of a sketch, so I added the tree (trees you can at least depend on for a model that won't move), and the bird feeder. Later, I got out my "Mule Deer Country" reference book and "fleshed out" my deer's form looking at those photographs, and then splashed on a bit of color. I'm so glad I took the time out to do it--it's a sweet moment captured forever!

Graphitints pencil, watercolor, on Arches Velin in the journal.

The Sketchbook Project - Pam Johnson Brickell

Here is a peak into my finished Sketchbook Project book. The theme..... Down your street.
While the pages were created in my studio, they are all about Nature's wonders that I see when on dog walks in our neighborhood.

To read more about this journey click here

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!

Strange birds

I walk almost every day at Howarth Park, a city park at the edge of Santa Rosa, California. I escape the more heavily populated trails as soon as I can and walk on trails where there are less humans and more nature, but at the end of every walk I have to take the main paved trail for a few hundred feet to get back to my car in the parking lot. That trail runs along the edge of Lake Ralphine and is usually so full of people, dogs, park vehicles and such, that I try to move along as quickly as I can.

I've certainly noticed the double-crested cormorants that roost in a tree over the water but, until today, I was too anxious to avoid the crowds to really pay attention to them. Since I've been learning to sketch birds I thought the cormorants would be good beginner's birds, since they tend to perch on a branch and just hang
out.

I found a nice little hill to sit on, above the busy trail and sketched for about an hour. As I was getting ready to leave I heard some strange guttural sounds and looked up to see that a lovely white-crested cormorant had landed precariously next to one of the black-crested birds in the tree. The black-crested bird was making the sounds I'd heard. The two birds began to move about in a

decidedly awkward dance -- cormorants aren't very graceful out of the water -- while the black-crested bird continued to vocalize. After a while they moved closer together and rubbed heads and necks together for a while until white-crest flew off, only to return again in a few moments for a bit more dancing, and then off again. White-crest was last seen swimming along with a small group of black-crested birds, while the dance partner in the tree settled back down to some preening and hanging out.
Double-crested cormorants had all but disappeared until the 1970's when DDT and PCB's were banned from use. Now the birds are so numerous that many humans who fish consider them pests.

Here are some interesting articles for further reading about these fascinating birds:

The Cormorant: The Devil Undisguised?; Dr. Tom Kazo, Ph.D. and Donna McVicar Cannon Kazo.
Double-crested Cormorant; Wikipedia.
Great Lakes Fact Sheet; The Rise of the Double-crested Cormorant on the Great Lakes: Winning the War Against Contaminants.