Casualty of War- Desiree

Today as I was sitting outside enjoying the beautiful morning and sketching my husband found a dead baby bird. It was laying on the concrete sidewalk, not close to any tree or nesting area. Another victim of the attacks that the crows have waged on the smaller birds in our area.  We have recently been overrun by a huge flock of crows and I often see them flying over head carrying off baby birds. I sadly documented the latest victim of our neighborhood war

Sketching Nature is sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes hard but always amazing!
Desiree

Spring Birds

Spring Birds, a photo by Teri DC on Flickr.

This was done on the handmade paper. The greens are inclusions in the paper and I love how much they add to the overall piece.
I was sitting outside and saw these two birds in this exact position.

On the difficulties of breeding on a beach

The population of Kentish plovers, a small European wader, is declining throughout its breeding range. As is the case with all disappearing species, the causes are habitat loss, predation, hunting, and in the case of this little guy, disturbance. The Kentish plover, Charadrius alexandrinus, makes its nest in a small depression on sandy beaches by the sea or by inland lakes or estuaries. Both sexes brood the eggs and attend to the chicks. However, not many of the young make it into adulthood. Being trampled by people or predated by dogs, foxes, or crows is a serious problem for this small bird. Conservation measures include fencing the areas where they breed, providing small cages to protect the nest, moving the eggs to a safer place. In the US, there's a very similar American subspecies, the Snowy plover. It, too, faces the same threats as its European cousin.

Winter robins

Winter robins, and lots of them! They overwinter in the southern 2/3 of the US, but you don't usually see them in town in the winter. I loved getting out the binoculars and seeing the robins and starlings drinking and bathing in my neighbor's rain gutter. 

Robins will eat berries and drupes that stay on the trees overwinter when they can't get their preferred worms and bugs; the hackberry tree by my fence has almost no sweet black berries left today!    (The tree's other name is sugarberry, no wonder they were so popular with the birds and squirrels.)

A Murder of Crows

Ink, watercolor, pencil, colored pencil

This one's watercolor pencil

Out here where I live, in a small town about 38 miles from Kansas City, we usually see shy crows in much lower numbers--5 seems to be a lot, up in the trees beyond my house.  When we looked up to see hundreds of them winging homeward the other afternoon, we were amazed at the numbers--and at their relative silence.  Here, they tend to be a bit on the raucous side, if shy of humans.  I generally know they're about from their harsh caws.

Click the link to hear the variety of sounds they make.

And why are they called a murder of crows when they gather in numbers?  Here's one explanation:
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blogger-blog/2008/01/murder-of-crows.html

They're smart birds...here are a couple of articles demonstrating just HOW smart:
http://www.examiner.com/environmental-news-in-kansas-city/education-is-even-for-the-crows


Joshua Klein on the intelligence of crows:  http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intelligence_of_crows.html

Crows have made PBS and YouTube, too!  PBS A Murder of Crows
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfI5-RWC-QQ

The beauty of bird eggs

These are Common quail eggs, with different hues and markings.

Birds belonging to burrow or hole nesting species tend to have white eggs. Birds nesting in the open, however, need to camouflage their eggs, and they do so exquisitely. First, the ground colour is acquired as pigment during shell formation. Later, superficial markings are added. Brown and black speckles and blotches are the result of the breaking down of blood pigments. Bile pigments produce green and bluish hues. Some species, such as Grebes, depend on mud and rotting nest vegetation to stain and splotch their whitish eggs. The largest egg is a Yellow-legged gull, a subspecies of the Herring gull found in Northern European countries. The middle one is a Common quail and the thirds a European starling.

My latest rescue

Here's my latest rescue, a white rock dove, Columba livia.

I understand that an age old tradition wants white rock pigeons to be released at weddings, as a symbol of peace and a long lasting relationship. Doves mate for life and raise their brood together. However, I thought that racing pigeons should be released at weddings, because they can fly back home. Something must be going wrong, as wildlife rescue centres get more and more distress calls, telling of white doves unable to take off after being released.

This one was picked up off the ground after the wedding was over. She does a lot of wing flapping, but barely lifts herself off the ground! Not much of a chance of her surviving in the wild. But, she makes a wonderful model and is a very elegant bird.

Starlings, mostly...

These guys are getting PUSHY. But when we went to the City the other day we saw flocks of literally hundreds, so I'll just hush...

They're intelligent birds...an old friend found a nestling, years ago, and rode his bike to the West coast, with Dulcinea going with him all the way. She rode in the basket, or inside his jacket...

More birds! They're hungry!

The birds in these parts got a lot of attention this past weekend. Sketchers sketched them. Photographers photographed them. Everyone fed them. We were snowed in, what can I say?

Tawny frogmouth - Alissa Duke

In the past few weeks I have drawn a tawny frogmouth feather (found on ground - species unknown at the time of drawing), a tawny frogmouth at the museum and today a few drawings from photographs. My brother took photographs of a tawny frogmouth family he saw at Christmas time in Queensland. He has a super camera with great lenses. I have never seen a chick before, let along three on branch.

Starlings on the Chimney

Starlings on the Chimney
Originally uploaded by Cathy (Kate) Johnson

Sketching in nature when it's 10 degrees sometimes works best from a window! These starlings, imports from Europe, have adapted well in a couple of hundred years--they seem to be everywhere! Smart and adaptable, in winter they're usually warming their toes on our neighbor's chimney.  (You can click on the image to see it larger, in my Flickr.)

Seen close up, they've got a lovely metallic sheen, and at this time of year are speckled with lighter dots.

Good old Wikipedia's got more on these interesting birds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starling and more here at All About Birds: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/european_starling/id

Mai the Mynah - Maree Clarkson

"The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself."

"Mai" pencil sketch and watercolour in Moleskine watercolour Notebook

We found a tiny Mynah on the pavement and couldn't see the nest anywhere, so took we took her home and over a couple of weeks watched her grow into a full-fledged Mynah. This sketch was done before she developed the fully black head and glossy brown plumage on the shoulders or the yellow around the eye. She spends most of her time outside hunting insects, but pops in every couple of hours for a snack of bread or some fruit and cheese.

She spent 5 beautiful months with us before mysteriously disappearing one Friday morning. My heart was broken, she was the most wonderful and intelligent pet anybody could wish for.

I know Mynahs are considered pests world wide, but for anybody out there that knows what an intelligent and loving little animal this is with a character that far surpasses that of any parrot, they will understand the feeling of attachment one forms with one of nature's little miracles.


Mai eyeing the birdbath before taking the plunge...


Mai taking a bath.


Fully grown Common Mynah

Chinese Watercolor Roosters

Chinese Watercolor Roosters
Originally uploaded by Ricky Holtman

Well I had a day in the studio cleaning....whoopee! So I just decided to go through and practice some styles I haven't painted in for quite a while. This of course are the famous fighting roosters in the Chinese watercolor style.
It was really challenging again and fun. Moleskine book. You know how I am about birds and especially roosters..ahahha

Rickys Caricature Bird Friends

Caricature Birds_edited-1
Originally uploaded by Ricky Holtman

We all have dumb friends and these are some of mine. I found these youngsters in the woods this morning. Flying and looking good just wasn't there best suit YET! All I had was folded paper in my pocket to draw on so that's the reason for the cartoons.
No great lessons here except that fun stage of life we all go through....every creature of God's, one time in our life. They were so loud also.....no manners yet.

Taos Ravens 1

Taos Ravens 1
Originally uploaded by Ricky Holtman

I just love these big ole Ravens. They are gorgeous to me and when they squawk their throat feathers ruffle all up giving them such texture. The sooty carbon black does show some beautiful colors in the wings if you look close.
The mountains are full of these guys and I couldn't get enough....
This is just a quick ink brush drawing done while they were fighting on top of a dumpster. I swear some of guys were the size of an old buick! ahahaha.
Enjoy if you like quick brush sketches.

Breeding Season

This is breeding season for most birds and it's common to see parents caring for unexperienced young. Some of these young birds, especially amongst the passerines, leave their nests before they can fully fly. Parents, and sometimes older siblings, are never far, but keep well out people's way. Not so the young, who are often "found" and kindly "rescued" by people. So, every year I raise a few of these foundlings.

This is a small swift chick, about three weeks old. It's still partially covered in down and the tail and wings are quite short. Swifts build their nests under the eaves of tall buildings, which in our towns substitute cliffs. When a young bird falls out of a nest, it is impossible to replace it. Swifts take a long time to grow up and leave their nests, longer than other birds. They are extraordinary creatures: highly adapted to live on the wing, once they take off they will only land again to feed their young and, sometimes, to roost at night. So they need to be fully prepared before undertaking this fantastic journey. Common swifts feed, sleep and mate on the wing.

As my chick grew his wings became increasingly long. Swifts are truly flying machines! Their hand wing covers about 80% of the total wing length. The angle at the elbow is less mobile than in other birds and they cannot fold their arms the way other birds can. Perhaps not surprisingly, they belong to the same order as the humming birds, the Apodiformes.

Common swifts can reach a speed of 13o km/h (over 80 miles per hour) and may cover a distance of 560 miles per day during nesting season. The swift's Latin names is Apus apus, meaning “without feet”, because common swifts have very short legs and can only use their feet for clinging to vertical surfaces; they are unable to perch like other birds and if they try they will simply hang. They can’t really take off from the ground, instead they jump off a surface, “dive” for a couple of feet and then fly. My chick grew so restless I could not sketch it anymore. In the last few days before taking off swift chicks vigorously flutter their wings in order to strengthen the muscles. Once they leave their nest they fly South almost immediately, all the way to Africa.

This morning a very different kind of baby bird was brought to me: a Blue Tit.
It's the cutest little thing, and very small as you can see compared to my hand. It weighs but a few grams. Of course, it should be with his parents, but was found in the mouth of a dog...