Just Around the Corner

A death in the park

2012-01-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

I was at the end of a walk when I heard, then saw, a mob of American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) circling nearby. It sounded and looked as though they were mobbing a predator so I decided to investigate further and walked quickly to the spot the birds seemed to be circling. In a little grove of oak and manzanita I found the fresh remains of a crow. The mob had disappeared and gone silent as soon as I arrived on the scene. There was no sign of the predator though I guessed that I might have interrupted the meal of a hawk or an owl.

As I looked around I saw that I was being regarded by a Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) with what appeared to be dignified indifference. I got out some paper and a pencil and began to draw. The vulture proceeded to take care of some personal grooming then gathered herself together and lifted off with enviable grace.

I returned to the spot where I first heard the ruckus. The crows had begun flying about again, though this time over a larger area while still making a lot of noise. There were more of them, too. Then most of them disappeared, though I could still hear them. Finding an open area, I found them roosting in a tree at the top of the ridge I had walked off of just before all of the excitement. I watched for a while as the crows flew out and about then returned to the tree, calling out their harsh cries. After a while, there were only a handful still in the tree, mostly silent. I packed up my sketch gear as the last of the crows dispersed.

A flicker of red

2011-12-28T13:46:00.000-08:00

Red-shafted northern flickers (Colaptens auratus) are one of the first birds I learned to recognize. Their distinctive call heralds the coming winter here in northern California and the bright red under their wings as they fly is like a neon sign on a gray autumn day. Unlike other woodpeckers, this species often forages on the ground, turning up leaves and earth with a slightly curved beak, to find insects, flying up in a frenzy if you disturb one as you're walking. In the eastern United States flickers are yellow-shafted and in between the east and west the two color forms hybridize to make various shades of orange.

I never really thought about the name of this bird until the other day when I found this colorful cluster of feathers in the woods of Howarth Park. After a moment thinking the color was artificial and had been left by careless humans, I recognized the color and pattern as I really grasped what was red-shafted about the northern flickers in these woods.

Birds: ballpoint, colored pencil, on 8.5 x 11" Hahnemuhle Ingres paper
Feathers: graphite, watercolor on Fabriano Artistico HP

Lunar eclipse

2011-12-18T14:51:00.000-08:00

6:10 a.m.

Our local paper reported that there would be a lunar eclipse on Saturday, December 11, 2011. The total eclipse was to occur between 6 and 7 a.m. The report said that the event would only be visible if you were at a relatively high elevation or at the coast because the moon would be so close to the horizon at the time of the eclipse. Over coffee on Friday my friend, JoAnn, and I decided to meet at the top of a hill (Fountaingrove) that's 800' according to Google and is near both of our houses. I got up at 4 and looked out the window to see if the sky was clear. I could easily see the beginning of the eclipse just below the canopy of the Valley oak in our backyard. It was hard to imagine that the moon would be very close to the horizon in only two hours. JoAnn, thinking similar thoughts, called me at 5:45 to say that she could see it from her yard, too. We considered meeting at her house to watch but decided it would be more fun to go up the hill as planned.

6:35 a.m.

It was 35º F (2º C) so I dressed warmly, packed my binoculars and sketch gear and scraped the ice off of my car windows before heading out. JoAnn and her family were already parked when I arrived. We were near an area designated as an open space with some homes on the other side of the street. A young German shepherd was roaming about and seemed very excited to have company. The eclipse was well under way and I got out some paper and a pen to begin sketching, using a nifty head lamp I'd bought for just such an occasion. I seemed to be having a hard time seeing the moon and commented to JoAnn about it. We both tried looking through binoculars but that made it worse. It was past 6 and it was our understanding that the moon was supposed to get bigger as it neared the horizon and turn a strong red color. Oh, and be fully eclipsed. My first sketch showed the moon way too big. The actual size appears above the sky. As we watched the moon sank lower in the sky and grew harder and harder to see. As the sun rose and the sky grew lighter we were able to see that a thin haze of clouds hovered low in the sky, causing the eclipsing moon to look hazy and blurred. The moon did get a bit bigger as it went lower but it never seemed to be totally eclipsed. At about 6:45 we decided that a nice warm breakfast sounded a bit more interesting than the fuzzy, eclipsed moon. I took one last look, cranked up the heater in my car and went home to eat breakfast then had some fun coloring my sketches from memory.

Oh, rats!

2011-12-08T22:00:00.000-08:00

The neighborhood I live in has seen a slow but steady increase in rats, mostly Roof rats (Rattus rattus). Roof rats are also called Fruit rats, Black rats and Ship rats and have been traveling alongside humans for so long that no one is exactly sure where they first lived, though it's believed they started out somewhere in southeast Asia.

Most everyone in my neighborhood can tell a horror story involving a rat so I wasn't too surprised to find one dead in someone's lawn early one Sunday morning in August. I bagged it and took it home to make some sketches and find out more about the neighbor no one wants.

Roof rat

Our family has had intermittent interraction with Roof rats for several years. We kept what we thought was a compost bin for a while, until we realized that we'd actually opened up a McDonald's for rats. They came to eat and party then moved into the attic above our garage. When I worked in my studio, at the back of the garage, at night or early in the morning, my soundtrack was the scritching of little feet overhead. In desperation we dismantled the compost bin and evicted the troublesome tenants. They seem to have taken up residence nearby, though. When our lemon tree has ripe fruit we can sit in the living room and watch as the occasional rat climbs the tree, neatly eats all of the rind from a fruit, leaving a perfectly peeled lemon behind. Apparently, if our tree bore oranges the rats would carefully suck the flesh out and leave a perfectly emptied peel still hanging on it's branch. They approach our apples as though they were wine connoisseur and take a bite of one fruit, then another before moving on.

With several cats in the vicinity, the population seems to stay fairly manageable and, for the most part, invisible. However, the other night I heard some familiar scritching sounds above my head as I worked in my studio so another eviction may be in order soon.

Roof rat

Recently, as I was wandered about one of the old rock quarries in Howarth Park I found a dead rat. I immediately assumed it was a Roof rat or maybe a Norway or brown rat, another immigrant rat from across the ocean. Looking closer, though, I saw that it didn't look much like our neighborhood rats, and decided to make some sketches to take home and help me identify it.

Dusky-footed woodrat

The large ears, long tail, ochre colored fur and the "dusky" patches on his hind feet (dark hairs) suggest that he's probably a Dusky-footed wood rat (Neotoma fuscipes), also known as a packrat. This mostly nocturnal native rodent favors brushy oak woodland and builds a large nest out of twigs, called a midden.

In a woodland area such as Howarth Park the nest might be on the ground, in a tree or in a rock crevice. I searched the area, looking for an above-ground midden, with no luck. However, there's a large opening into a rock crevice near where I found this little fellow and Chloe has always been extraordinarily interested in it, leading me to believe that might be where the packrats live.

For more about Roof rats :
Wikipedia
sfbaywildlife.info
Sacramento Press
Davis Wiki
Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management

To learn more about packrats visit these sites:
Wikipedia: Pack Rat
Wikipedia: Dusky-footed Pack Rat
California State University Stanislaus
Animal Diversity Web
Jane Goodall: Hope for Animals and Their World; Key Largo Woodrat
Camera Trap Codger: A ratty flashback
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: Neotoma fuscipes

Clouds

2011-11-14T18:00:00.000-08:00

In northern California, where I live, the sky is clear all summer long, giving us the the warm, sunny summers that California is famous for (unless you're on the coast, but that's another story). It also means that sunrise and sunset are pretty darned boring for most of the year, too. The sky's blue all day, then a few different shades of blue then black and vice versa in the morning. When I first moved here in the mid-1980s summer mornings were often foggy but the fog has been absent, for the most part, for many years. It's always thrilling when autumn arrives and we begin to have some weather. Where there's weather there are clouds. In the early fall, the sky itself is still often visible, punctuated by billowing, blowsy cream-colored clouds with deep blue shadows. Sometimes, there are waves of wispy puffs of white drifting across the blue. As autumn turns to winter the clouds turn dirty gray and often cover the sky entirely, hanging close to the ground. By winter's end, I find myself ready for some boring old blue again. But autumn has just begun here and I'm still enjoying the novelty of a changeable sky.
I like to wake up very early. Even in summer it's still mostly dark outside when I wake, but now, as the days have grown shorter the sun doesn't rise until I've stretched, dressed, watched the news, eaten breakfast and, often, washed the dishes. The other morning, when the dishes were only halfway done, a startling pink glow leaked through the blinds covering the window. Dishes forgotten, I hurried to open them and was smacked in the face by an astonishing sunrise lighting up seemingly endless rows of weiner-shaped clouds. It was over in moments and the clouds rapidly lost their rosy tint and became a ceiling of dull, puffy gray. It rained later that day and into the next. The following morning I opened those blinds to see the same view veiled in a fog that Sherlock Holmes would have felt right at home in.

Both sketches were done with #2 pencil on Strathmore 400 sketch paper. Watercolor and colored pencil were added to the first sketch later in the day.

A visit with a snake

2011-10-31T08:21:00.000-07:00

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

A fine day

2011-10-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

Every morning, I begin my walk with a sense of adventure, wondering what I'll see as I wander about. Although there are days when not much seems to be happening, most of the time there's a least one thing that inspires me to draw or to ask questions or both. Some days there's so much going on that it's hard to contain myself! That's how it was one day in September, when there seemed to be excited activity wherever I walked. Joining in the spirit of things, I had a blast sketching birds as they moved about the edge of the woods gathering food. First year birds chased each other wildly through the trees. A pair of young juncos flew so close that I could hear their wings beat as the sped past me. A Downy woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) spent a good ten minutes demolishing an oak apple gall (Andricus californicus) to eat the larvae inside. Chickadees (Poecile rufescens) traveled through the treetops in search of insects to eat and a lovely but unfamiliar song led me to my first female Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana), a shy dingy yellow bird who I never would've found without hearing her first.

Jackrabbits in the cemetery

2011-10-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

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.

Birds of a different color

2011-09-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

While watching a flock of birds feeding in a cemetery here in Santa Rosa, I caught a brief glimpse of one with the dark cap and wings of an American goldfinch, but with white feathers over the rest of his body instead of yellow. Of course, when I tried to get closer for a better look he flew off. The next day I went back, and the day after that, to see if he would return, and was pleasantly surprised to see him both days along with another similarly colored bird in a small flock of normally colored goldfinches.

Since both birds had dark eyes and all the black pigmentation was normal, I was pretty sure they weren't albino. Having no idea what else to search for I began there anyway. I found many sites discussing and showing pictures of an astonishing variety of species of birds with color aberrations. On some sites the birds I saw were described as "partial albino". An equal number of sites scoffed at that and insisted that the birds were leucistic (loo-KISS-tick).

If I understand what I've learned about how birds get their colors, yellow and red coloration are produced by carotenoids while melanin produces the "earth" colors, i.e. browns and black. Leucism is caused by a lack of melanin. The goldfinches I saw seemed to be doing just fine in the melanin department so is it really leucism? Most of the articles I read state that it's impossible to be partially albino as albinism is, by definition, a complete lack of melanin. So, not partially albino, either. Which leaves me wondering...well, a lot of things. And still not really able to give a name to the altered color of these not-so-gold finches.

For some general information about how birds get their colors:
ScienceDaily
Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Links to information and pictures about albinism, leucism, and other variations in bird color:
Birding Frontiers, Albinism, Leucism and Vitiligo
Twin Cities Naturalist, Leucistic American robin (check out the link to Hein van Grouw's article)
All About Birds: Color
Project FeederWatch, Plumage Variations: Albinism or Leucism?
Project FeederWatch, Unusual Birds
about.com, Bird Leucism
Chipper Woods Bird Observatory, Northern Cardinal-Leucistic
Picus Blog, Leucistic Red-tailed hawk
A set of pictures at flickr by gregpage1465
David Sibley's blog, Abnormal coloration in birds: Melanin reduction

Life bird at the feeder. Whooee!

2011-08-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

This morning I sat in our kitchen to try and decide where I was going to walk when the the fog lifted. It was 8:30 and there was no sign of sun so I had plenty of time to decide. I looked up at the bird feeder and noticed what I thought was a very large pigeon on it. When I looked closer I saw that it wasn't a rock pigeon (Columba livia). It was bigger, had yellow feet and a yellow and black beak. There was a very faint white bar on the back of her neck with a few iridescent green feathers underneath, which I would have missed if I didn't know to look for them (after consulting David Sibley's Guide to Birds) I got out some paper and began sketching, thinking she would be leaving sooner than later. As I sketched, I noticed how unhealthy she looked and the way she moved her beak as she ate, as though something was caught in her throat. Not to mention the fact that she stayed at the feeder even though I was only 2 feet (61 cm) away from her. An hour later I stopped to walk to the bank with my dog. Still no sun. When I returned at 11 am the sun was finally beginning to show and several birds were lined up on the phone wire above the bird feeder looking down at the mystery bird, who had fallen asleep, preventing them from getting to their morning meal. I went inside and was pleased to see that she had perked up a bit and ate some more seed before flying off at 11:30. I'd already discovered that she was a Band-tailed Pigeon (Columba fasciata), a native to the western United States. Having never seen one before I wasn't surprised to find that these birds are normally found in coastal woodlands here in northern
California. I'll bet that there's a good story about how she ended up at a feeder in Santa Rosa, a good 35 miles from the coast and I hope that whatever ails her is temporary and that she'll be winging her way south for the winter.

As I wrote this post in the late afternoon my husband came to my studio to tell me that she's back at the feeder so maybe she'll stick around for a while.

More information about Band-tailed pigeons:

All About Birds
Wikepedia
Audubon
Whatbird

Young hawks in the cemetery

2011-07-27T17:57:00.000-07:00

The other day I walked to Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery very early in the morning, around 6:30 a.m. The air was deliciously thick with fog and it was cold, something I appreciated in light of the heat wave plaguing most of the country at the time. As I wandered I heard a distant but loud chorus of songbirds and followed the sound to see if I could identify the birds singing. I thought they were probably goldfinches but wanted to confirm my guess. As I drew nearer I began to scan the live oak (Quercus agrifolia) canopy. I could see small shapes flitting among the leaves and branches but the light made it difficult to see anything other than shape. I began backing up a hill to make it easier to look into the trees when I suddenly saw an interesting lump on a branch. At first I thought it might be a fungus, then an owl and finally I realized that it was a young Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) hunched low. I was fascinated and got out my paper and pen, hoping the hawk would stay a while so I could draw him.

As I sketched the fog began to break up and I saw that the songbirds were, indeed, goldfinches, Lesser Goldfinches (Spinus psaltria), to be exact, many of whom were flittering about the hawk with no apparent concern. I was certain that the hawk was waiting to catch one for it's breakfast. He stayed on the branch for a long time, then was gone, with a few harsh cries, while my head was bent to my sketch paper. It didn't seem as though he had caught a bird on his way out, though the finches were silent and still for several minutes after he was gone. Then they went back to singing and flittering and I packed up and went home.

Since that day I've seen two young hawks soaring through the canopy on several occasions. They call to one another as they fly, making it easy for me to follow them around the cemetery. Like may young birds and mammals I've encountered, they're not as wary as adults and often land on branches or gravestones very near where I stand or sit. A couple of times I've seen them with a third bird, who may be an adult but never gets close, or stays long enough for me to identify. I suspect that the parents are still feeding them, at least some of the time. One morning I found one of the fledges near a large nest and could hear the other but was unable to find her until she climbed out of the nest and perched nearby, crying out rather pitifully. Afterwards, I found several more similar nests that I suspect are from previous years. By 8:30 a.m. it becomes difficult to find the birds as they settle down in the tree tops. Without the aid of sound, I've found it nearly impossible to find either bird. The patterns and colors of their plumage allow them to blend right into their environment.

Although Cooper's Hawks hunt by day and eat birds, their preference is for bigger birds than goldfinches. They like Rock Pigeons, Northern Flickers, Mourning Doves and Jays, as well as some small mammals and will generally leave the small birds alone. As breathtaking as it is to watch these hawks fly through the canopy it apparently takes it's toll. A study of more than 300 Cooper's Hawk skeletons found that 23 percent had old, healed fractures of the chest. Cooper's Hawks were once only found in the country but are now more prevalent in urban and suburban settings, probably because of the abundance of Rock Pigeons and Mourning Doves.

Learn more:
All About Birds
United States Geological Service (USGS)
Three Rivers Avian Center

Little pig in from the cold

2011-01-02T18:00:00.000-08:00

In November I wrote about a guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) that had been abandoned at Howarth Park. I continued to feed the pig each morning after I'd walked, learning what she liked (jicama, carrots, kale, apple) and didn't like (celery, peppers). As I continued my research about the little pigs, I added commercial pellets and hay. As each day went by, I began to feel less comfortable about leaving the pig in the wild. Her feet and fur were always wet. She began to depend on my visits and was very vocal when I arrived late or missed a day (which I only did once). Worst of all, on one sunny morning, she complained when I left and tried to follow me out of the park. I returned twice to spend more time with her before finally leaving that day. I realized that the guinea pig was putting up a brave front but was lonely and probably not enjoying her outdoor adventure as much as I'd wanted to believe.

Although I'd grown attached to her, I was fairly certain that adopting a guinea pig wasn't an option in our tiny house with a dog that saw the pig as a much more interesting toy than those in her toy box. I discovered that our local Humane Society would accept her and carefully screen any would-be adopters, so I began to devise a strategy to bring the pig in from the cold. We still have a cat carrier though the cat passed on long ago. I built a little cardboard pig house and put it inside the carrier, along with some of the pig's favorite foods and set it in her grotto, placing her usual meal just outside the door. I thought it might take a few days before she'd walk in and was pleasantly surprised when she sauntered into the carrier with very little outward trepidation, picked up a piece of apple, carried it into the pig house and started noshing.

At the shelter, I was told that, because she was officially a stray, they'd have to post notices about her for a week before she could be adopted. I'm happy to report that she found a home one day after her week was up.

I sure do miss seeing her every day but am hopeful that she's living in nice warm place, eating well, and getting lots of pig love in the New Year.

Best wishes to you for this new year!

Bleeding mushrooms

2010-12-18T18:10:00.000-08:00

These pretty little mushrooms, called Mycena haematopus, bleed deep red when the stem is cut, especially at the base. Although there are other bleeding Mycenas, this is the only one that fruits on wood, making it easy to identify. This piece of wood was barely able to hold it's shape and had no bark left on it. It was, in fact, so well-decayed that I can't say what kind of wood it was. There were Garry oak (Quercus garryana), Pacific madrone (Arubutus menziesii) and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in the area. In the four years or so that I've been paying attention to fungi, I've usually seen these mushrooms singly or, perhaps, with one or two others, so I felt as though I was attending a delightful little soiree while sketching this comparatively large group! If you look closely, you can see several new buttons poking out of the wood on the left.

For more about bleeding Mycena, visit these sites:

Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month, June 2002
MushroomExpert
Wikipedia
Mykoweb: California Fungi

The mushrooms are here!

2010-12-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

After too much frost and not quite enough rain, it's warmed up here and there's a steady supply of water falling from the sky. Guess what that means? Mushrooms! Mushrooms in little armies marching under conifers and standing solitary under oaks. Mushrooms poking up out of the leaves in the forest and mushrooms sprouting from wet, decaying wood. I've been getting out as much as I can to find them. So far, it's a fabulous year for mushrooms and it's hard to choose which fungi to draw when I do get out.

In the past week, the deathly invader, Amanita phalloides has suddenly risen, in little groups, big groups, and by itself, scattered about Howarth Park, and elsewhere. This one was a bright beacon, as I walked along a trail, begging to be sketched. I felt compelled to oblige.

Cormorant poop

2010-12-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

It's almost winter and Double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) have returned to Lake Ralphine. They can be seen swimming low in the water then suddenly diving out of sight, only to return, often with a fish caught in their beak, which they flip about and swallow. Once they're done fishing, they fly up into this California black oak (Quercus kelloggii) or a Western cottonwood (Populus fremontii) that's nearby and spread their wings to dry and just generally hang out. Although the oak looks dead it isn't, not yet, anyway. It may be that being chosen by these large birds could eventually be the death of the tree. During breeding season Cormorants nest in colonies and the large amounts of....uh...poop that falls from the nests and from the adult birds makes the soil too toxic for the tree that the birds are nesting in, eventually killing it, forcing the birds to choose a new nesting site.

The Cormorants that spend the winter at Lake Ralphine aren't nesting but they certainly are loitering and congregating in one place, this California black oak.

Fairfax County Public Schools
All About Birds
Wikipedia
BirdWeb (Seattle Audubon Society)
United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Fish & Wildlife Service

Guinea pig in the wild

2010-11-29T17:00:00.000-08:00

Last week, as I pulled my car into a parking space at Howarth Park, I saw something small moving oddly through the underbrush in the woods above the parking lot. I gathered up my gear and my dog and went closer to explore. Before I'd gotten very far, I knew that I was looking at a nearly forgotten friend from my early adolescence, though in a decidedly different habitat than that of my pet guinea pig (Cavia porcellus) from many, many years ago. This guinea pig was hopping awkwardly about, stopping every now and then to eat some of the new grass sprouting all over the park. He was decidedly unconcerned as I drew closer but only to a point, at which he scuffled off at a distance.

Chloe and I went on our way and when I got home, after our walk, I set about refreshing my memory about guinea pigs. I found that much of what I remembered was wrong.

Guinea pigs originated in the Andes and were domesticated long ago, as a food source. There are some close relatives still in the wild but but it's not certain that the domesticated pig is descended from any of them. Although Guinea pigs are still raised as food in in the Andean highlands, they were enthusiastically adopted elsewhere as exotic house pets beginning in the 16th century, when European traders brought them back from their travels to the New World. I was relieved to find that guinea pigs still retain a preference for cool weather over hot, as our night time temperatures have been about 30 degrees F (-1C) for nearly a week.

Back at Howarth Park, I returned the next day with some fruit and vegetables which the pig devoured with great enthusiasm, as long as I kept my distance. I began an internal debate about whether to attempt a rescue or allow the pig to live a shorter but certainly more exciting life at Howarth Park. I wondered if the pig missed the humans who abandoned him, or if life at the edge of the park was a welcome and exciting change from the more sedate, but possibly very boring domestic life of a household pet in a cage. Trying to imagine myself in this guinea pig's place, I felt that life in the wild would be my choice, in spite of the increased danger and hardship. When I told a friend about my predicament, she thought she'd prefer the cage or, rather, the steady supply of food and easy lifestyle. So, I'm trying to split the difference by taking food with me when I go to the park to walk.

I hadn't seen the pig in a couple of days, because I've been going early in the morning when it's still cold and he seems to wait, as do many of the native inhabitants, for warmth before venturing out for breakfast. Yesterday I finally got a chance to see the pig, in the late afternoon, when I dropped off some food but he's adapting well to life in the wild and was gone before I got close.

Cavy history
Animal Diversity Web
Wikipedia
The Humane Society of the United States

Watching the sun set

2010-11-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

Most afternoons my husband, Chloe and I walk to downtown Santa Rosa to visit our favorite coffee place. We chat and watch the people and dogs that always seem to be bustling about. If we're not in a hurry, I'll do some urban sketching, mostly of the other people drinking coffee outside.

There are often quite a few birds about, especially in the winter, eating pieces of muffin, bagel and cookies that end up on the ground. There's also someone who puts out handfuls of seed most days. We see Brewer's blackbirds (Euphagus cyanocephalus)and a few House sparrows (Passer domesticus). Last week, a hawk dove from on high trying to capture one of the blackbirds but it missed and was gone so quickly that I wasn't even sure what I'd seen until I'd thought about it a while. Oddly, there aren't any pigeons, though there are some living near our house, a quarter of a mile away.

In winter the blackbirds begin to gather at around 4 p.m. on top of the building across the street, facing the sun as it rapidly sinks in the sky. Often, we'll see nearly 100 birds perched quietly at the edge of the roof, some of them preening themselves. Sometimes the whole group will suddenly lift off and wheel about over the small city of Santa Rosa before landing again, often when crows fly over, but usually for no reason that we can discern.

Insect ballet

2010-11-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

One brilliantly sunny day, after days of rain many years ago, I was in our backyard when the air around me suddenly filled with graceful winged insects that drifted off and then disappeared. They seemed to be rising from the ground beneath me and when I looked I saw hundreds more crawling unsteadily about the flagstones beneath my feet. I captured one for later identification and watched as all of them became airborne and disappeared within an hour.

I was chagrined to discover that the beautiful flight I witnessed was the annual departure of reproductive termites from their nest. The one somewhere on our property. Uh oh.

The nice exterminator who came the next day couldn't find any sign of invasion of our home but still felt strongly that we should begin an toxic and expensive monthly pest control program. We decided against it and have been keeping watch for signs that the termites have moved from the old stump beneath the house to the house itself. So far it hasn't happened.

It turns out that termites, like the fungi I'm so fond of, serve an important function as one of the recycling crews of our planet. They recycle old, decayed wood and help keep the soil porous and rich with nutrients. Oh, and termites are considered choice eating by several species, including our own, some of whom consider toasted termite to be a culinary delight. Earlier this year I watched a Western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) eat quite a few termites as they emerged from the ground to fly away.

Most of the information about termites seems to be provided by colleagues and employers of that nice exterminator that came to our house after the first termite flight we saw. Here's some less biased information, including a wonderful video of an amazing termite skyscraper in Nigeria.

Resources:
University of California
Arizona Sonora Desert Museum
Wikipedia
David Attenborough video

Just before the rain

2010-11-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

It had rained in the morning and was supposed to clear up in the afternoon, so I changed my day around and went to the park in the afternoon. Ha! Paying attention to weather forecasters is pretty much like gambling with your life savings. It was gray and chilly and felt as though it was going to rain at any moment. This really wasn't a bad thing because I love that gray light for the way it makes every other color so brilliant that they almost glow, even the faded golds and tans of late summer in Northern California. I was considered drawing a landscape until this Oak titmouse (Baelophus inornatus) landed in a manzanita (Archostaphylos sp.) and preened long enough for me to get a sketch. After the bird left I worked on the leaves and branches until the rain that wasn't supposed to fall did, indeed, begin to fall. Since I was in a meadow with no umbrella (remember the part about believing weather forecasters?) I cut the sketching short and toddled off to enjoy a delightful walk in the rain.

Lion's mane

2010-11-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

In my last post I mentioned looking for a fungus called Hericium erinaceus or Lion's mane. Although I didn't find the one I was looking for, I did find this one fruiting in the Black oak (Quercus kelloggii) in another part of the park. I actually saw my very first Lion's Mane fruiting from this tree about three years ago. It fruited the following year then skipped last year and here it is again.

If you find it early, this is an edible fungus, though not one I've ever tried to eat. Although my sketch only suggests it, the rounded white area at the bottom of the organism is comprised of slender "teeth" or spines which produce the spores, rather than gills. This fungus had already begun to produce spores and had a white dusting on top.

More written and pictorial information:
MushroomExpert
Mykoweb
MushroomObserver

Flicker

2010-11-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

The voice of the Northern red-shafted flicker is what the beginning of fall sounds like here in Sonoma County. This year I heard the first flicker in August, which seemed a bit early, but now, in mid-October, it's hard to go anywhere in Howarth Park without hearing one or more flickers calling out to one another. My ears led me to this dapper fellow in an open part of the park with scattered Blue oak (Quercus douglassii), one gray day. I started to draw him with a fountain pen but it didn't work out the way I wanted so I switched over to ball-point and then got carried away by the whole scene, not just the bird. Thus, an inky ghost of a Flicker watches over the scene on the left side of the image.

Although the flicker is a woodpecker it's commonly seen on the ground, foraging for insects. This one was foraging in some dead wood high up in an oak and stayed a good long while. Up to 45% of a flicker's diet is ants, along with other insects, and in winter, some nuts, seeds and berries.

Here in the western part of North America, you're most likely to see the red-shafted flicker, while in the east the yellow-shafted Northern flicker is more common.

More about flickers:
Wikipedia
BirdWeb
Chipper Woods Observatory

More stinging things

2010-10-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

After getting all mushy about my (previously) sworn enemies, Yellow-jackets (Vespula pennsylvanica), I happened upon a large hanging nest near where the Yellow-jacket nest was destroyed. I'd actually been looking to see if a Hericium erinaceus, or Lion's Mane fungus had begun to fruit yet in an oak a bit off of one of the trails at Howarth Park. Instead, I found a huge wasp nest hanging in the Madrone in front of the oak. The nest was about the size of a basketball with two openings at the bottom. I watched it with binoculars for a while and was surprised to see a few stocky, black insects with white on their hind ends flying in and out. I recognized the nest structure as that of a wasp but had never seen a black and white wasp before and found myself looking forward to getting home to see if I could discover the identity of this new critter.

Bald-faced hornets (Dolichovespula maculata) are in the same family as my new friends, the Yellow-jackets (Vespula pennsylvanica) but are black and white with mostly white faces, hence the common name. While Yellow-jackets are very aggressive, the Bald-faced hornet is a mellower insect and will only go after those who mess with it's nest of, oh, only about 400 to 700 hornets!

To create their amazing nests, the hornets chew up wood and mix it with starch in their saliva to make a lovely paper-like substance. The nest is incorporated into the tree branches for additional strength and substance. The same predators that search out Yellow-jacket larvae, raccoons, foxes and skunks, will raid Bald-faced hornets nests, especially when they're hung low in the tree, looking for the tasty larvae.

After doing this rather quick sketch one afternoon, I planned to return to do a more detailed sketch but, after our first winter storm, this weekend, the nest was crumpled on the ground underneath the tree. Hopefully, it was the storm and not a predator.

To learn more about Bald-faced hornets check out these web sites:

North American Insects and Spiders
http://www.muenster.org/hornissenschutz/baldfaced/baldfaced.htm
Good ol' Wikipedia
Fairfax County Public Schools

Sympathy for the devil?

2010-10-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

It's because of Western yellow-jackets (Vespula pennsyvanica) that I no longer go outside without a hat. A couple of autumns ago, I was repeatedly dive-bombed by speeding yellow-jackets who proceeded to get tangled in my (very short) hair. The first time I thought it was a fly and tried to pick it out, only to get my fingers stung. The second time I beat the wasp and my head with a stick until it's mangled body fell to the ground. The third time I was able to prod it out with a stick. The fourth time I finally used my brains and wore a hat, which the yellow-jacket bounced off of and went on it's demented way.

These are the same merry insects that crash outdoor parties in the summer. It's quite amazing to watch one carve a small orb out of your meat dish and chow down or carry it away. However, they're not very good at sharing so we've learned to set a place for the yellow-jackets far away from our food. This actually seems to work most of the time, leading me to believe that they're chowing down and thinking, " How nice it is not to be bothered by the giant mammals for a change and, by the way, isn't this chicken just divine?"

Yellow-jackets only live one season and their time ends as the autumn winds down, so perhaps I can forgive them their wild attacks at this time of year. With my hat in place I can afford some magnanimity toward them.

This summer I've kept my eye on a nest of yellow jackets, in the ground, near one of the trails at Howarth Park that I frequently walk. I tried to observe the goings on but whenever I stopped, at a healthy distance, to look with my binoculars a few would head my way and start buzzing me in a way that just didn't seem friendly. About two weeks ago small rocks began appearing in the opening to the nest. The yellow-jackets dodged them the best they could and continued to come and go. Sometimes the rocks were removed and other times more were added. It seemed very odd and I tried to imagine the courage or stupidity it would take to stand close enough to put the rock in the opening. As the mornings grew chillier, I noticed that the wasps weren't very active so maybe it was someone roaming at night or earlier in the morning than I.

It remained a small mystery in the back of my head but one that I mostly forgot about until near the end of September, when I found that the opening had been dug wider and there was honeycomb scattered everywhere with what I discovered were larvae within. Several of the larvae were being carried off by ants and a few adult yellow-jackets walked about the ground looking dazed. I was able to get quite close without any attacks. I really couldn't imagine why any human would want to risk life and limb and dig out a yellow-jacket nest. I made some sketches and notes and looked forward to trying to untangle the mystery.

Continuing my trek, I noticed some raccoon scat in the trail, not an unusual sight, but I began to wonder if, for some crazy reason, a raccoon or other mammal had been the digger. As it turns out, it may have been. Apparently, yellow-jacket larvae are mighty fine eating in some circles. Raccoons, skunks and possums are known to dig up these nests and feast on the larvae. So, that mystery....solved.

I still had one other mystery to solve, though. If yellow jackets die at the end of summer why was this nest full of larvae? As it happens, each spring, a single female queen that has overwintered begins to build a nest and lay eggs that become the workers who, in turn, take over nest building and provisioning as the queen lays more eggs, creating more wasps to populate the colony. At the end of summer she lays another set of eggs that will become fertile females who, in turn, go off and find a safe place to spend the winter before beginning their own new nests. I find myself feeling sympathetic toward this group of Yellow-jackets. They worked all summer, took care of their young, only to lose them in a moment. Hmm.

For more information and pictures visit:
The adventurous gardener
The Yellow Jacket Wasp
Bug Guide

Reminded of Woody the Woodpecker

2010-10-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

One day, many years ago, I walked through some woods and heard, to my great surprise, the call of a cartoon character from my childhood, Woody Woodpecker. I followed the ear-shattering sound and beheld two enormous birds flying from tree to tree and calling loudly to one another. At home I found it was easy to identify them as Pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus), which are described at All About Birds as being nearly as large as a crow. They seem bigger to me but I've never had the opportunity to compare the two species side by side or to measure. There seems to be some question as to whether Woody, the cartoon woodpecker, was modeled after Pileated or Acorn woodpeckers. Julie Zickefoose, an naturalist and artist discusses this further at NPR.

More recently I came upon a male Pileated excavating in a small oak along a busy trail at Howarth Park. He worked silently and diligently, hacking away at a small black oak tree. I pulled off to the side of the trail and sketched for about 20 minutes before he took off. Soon after, I packed up and walked on toward some California ground squirrels and excitement for my canine companion.

More about the actual woodpecker:
National Geographic
Wild Bird Watching Pileated Woodpecker Central
All About Birds

...and the animated woodpecker:
Don Markenstein's Toonopedia
Universal Studios
Wikipedia

Quiet time

2010-10-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

If you seek solitude at Howarth Park in the summer, it's best to arrive soon after the sun rises. It's a busy place the rest of the day. Now that children are back in school and families have gotten back to their school-year schedules, I've found that mid to late morning is the perfect time to walk. The sun brings warmth after cooler nights. It's lower in the sky, even this late in the morning, and throws deep, dramatic shadows. Depending on the way the wind blows, the sound of nearby traffic is a faint whisper, allowing me to enjoy the sound of the breeze rustling the dry grasses and leaves as I draw.

A quiet afternoon in the cemetery

2010-10-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

Leaves have been falling around here like crazy, revealing the architecture of the trees that have released them, renewing my interest in drawing trees. A bubble of leaves atop a trunk just isn't as exciting as twisting, gnarly limbs reaching up and out and over. Last weekend I headed over to the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery which is populated with some beautiful old oaks, mostly Coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia) and Interior live oak (Quercus wislizeni). Because much of the cemetery is on a rise, it's easy to get dramatic lighting in the early morning or late afternoon.

Still alive

2010-10-07T16:40:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer I more or less stumbled upon a pair of Skilton's skinks (Plestiodon skiltonianus) living under a rock that I like to sit on at Howarth park. I visited every day for a few days. They seemed curious, if not a bit put out, about Chloe and I, and would lurk about for a while before heading off to hunt up some breakfast. Then I suddenly stopped seeing them. The ground around their rock had been dug into and I feared that they were no longer of this world. A week ago, though, I stopped by just to sit a while and, lo and behold, one of the skinks glided out from under the rock and sat a spell with us before heading out for some hunting. I've been back a few times since and there's been no sign of skinks.

Summer's end

2010-10-04T20:58:00.000-07:00

At the very beginning of my walk at Howarth Park today, after I'd walked up a little hill to Camp WaTam, I found nine California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) gathered in the sun just outside of their den underneath a giant metal storage container. Amazingly, nobody walked by until I had most of the sketch done, a miracle because these intrepid rodents live at a busy crossroads.

The first year squirrels had a hard time staying still and would periodically pop violently out of the crowd as they rough-housed with each other, raising clouds of dust, while the more mature squirrels continued to bask serenely, undisturbed by the youthful eruptions of exuberance.

Preparing for winter

2010-09-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in a previous post I've found California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) to be excellent models as I learn to draw wildlife. After spending the summer drawing the rather tame squirrels that have made homes in the picnic areas where there's constant human activity, I decided to begin sketching some of the wilder cousins out along the trails in the old quarry areas of Howarth Park.

In early August, I noticed three juveniles basking in the sun as it rose and warmed the rocks. I didn't see any adults but heard alarm calls a few hundred feet behind where I sat. I stopped to visit and sketch one or two times each week and only saw the three youngsters, who generally appeared each morning as the rocks were warmed by the sun. They would bask, then move about the grasses, eating seeds and playing with each other while keeping an eye on Chloe and I as we watched them.

For almost a week, I only saw two of the young squirrels and feared that a predator had made a meal of the missing squirrel. Then, one day I saw all three together again and two adults, as well. One of the adults was carrying a large load of something in her cheek pockets. In fact, she seemed rooted to the spot, giving me the chance to get a drawing of her in all of her double-chinned glory.

Waiting for breakfast

2010-09-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

One sunny morning I started my walk at Howarth Park at Lake Ralphine. The trail around the lake is above the water. There are several areas right on the water that have been cleared out and are used by picnickers and fishers. In the early morning the sun rises up over a low ridge, grazing the lake and the land near it and as I walked I saw a Black phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) perched on a rock waiting for the insects that were beginning to buzz above the water as the sunlight warmed the air.

Black phoebe was one of the first birds I learned to identify. The bird's coloring reminded me of a tuxedo and I always imagined the phoebe just getting home from a formal event. Phoebe's call is easy to recognize. Phoebe. Phoebe. Phoebe! Finally, if I saw a black and white bird bounce up out of a low tree or shrub, then circle back into it, then do it all several more times, I was quite certain I'd seen a Black phoebe. Because they don't seem to be so shy of people, they're much easier to spot than other flycatchers, who seem to stay high in the treetops and tend to blend better into their surroundings.

Life drawing class revisited

2010-09-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

There are very few places in Howarth Park that you can't find a family of California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi). They're quite tolerant of humans, adapting easily to our ways. Those that live in the areas most used by humans have come to depend on us for a steady diet of junk food, often fed by toddlers getting their first introduction to what can loosely be called wildlife. Deeper into the park, the squirrels are wary of humans but still much more tolerant of our presence than other wildlife.

I've only begun sketching wildlife this past year. After several years of drawing fungi and plants, I found that I had no clue how to draw something that wasn't sitting still and posing for me or rooted to the ground. Birds were what drew me to wildlife but sketching the ground squirrels of Howarth Park has given me the best practice so far. Beginning with those that are well accustomed to humans invading their area, I've been able to learn a great deal about sketching small animals that are in nearly constant motion. On days when it was just too hard for me to follow them with my pen or pencil, I could usually find some basking in the sun for long stretches of time, giving me the chance to do some figure drawing the way I learned it long ago, with a stationary model.

In the process of observing, I've found myself fascinated by creatures that I once took very little notice of. They, in turn, seem to be fascinated with the woman and dog who sit quietly and watch them. The first-year squirrels greatly enjoy tormenting Chloe by creeping closer and closer, causing the poor dog to lose control and lunge at the last minute, only to be brought up short by the leash as the devilish squirrel easily escapes. In one spot we like to sit there's a burrow opening about 2 feet in front of my feet where at least one of the young squirrels likes to poke her face out and watch us intently, with her nose going the whole time.

If you're looking for help sketching any kind of creature that moves you might find Drawing Birds by John Busby to be a great place to begin. Although the focus is on birds, the techniques he discusses are as much help with ground squirrels as birds and the artwork by several different wildlife artists is truly inspiring.

Fungi have begun fruiting!

2010-09-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

I went all summer and rarely thought about fungi. There were birds, ground squirrels, deer and wildflowers to distract me. Oh, and a couple of foxes that crossed my path every now and then, so fast that I had to pinch myself to be sure that I'd seen them. But, as the dry summer rolled along and the red dust of Howarth Park settled more heavily over rocks and shrubs something undefinable changed in the air and I found myself checking trees for signs of Inonotus hispidus, the first fungus that appears in the early fall at Howarth Park.

On September 14 my vigilance was rewarded and I spotted this beautiful hunk of burning fungus love and felt my heart go pitty-pat at the thought of more to come. I've found one other just beginning to fruit on an oak on the far side of the park from where I found this one. I'm so excited!

Inonotus hispidus is a wood rotting fungus and appears on dead or dying branches of trees, or on fallen logs. On one hand, it's sad to see it in a standing tree as it means that tree probably won't be standing for all that much longer. On the other hand, Inonotus hispidus and other wood rotters keep forests and woodlands clean by composting old, diseased wood. Although this tree will fall, the fungus will help pave the way for a new tree to sprout from this tree's acorns.

For more information visit these sites:

Forest Pests
First Nature
Forest Health Protection
Rogers Mushrooms

Summer's almost (but not quite) gone

2010-09-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

Even though it's begun to feel like fall here in northern California some days still have a bit of summer to them. Last week, the fog that's been keeping it cool was pushed offshore by high pressure from the east and we had sunny, cool mornings that warmed up quickly. At the end of our walk Chloe and I made a stop at the picnic area to watch the resident ground squirrels as they climbed live oak and coyote brush to nibble on leaves and accept handouts from small children and their parents. Looking out over the lake I was amused to see two turtles lollygagging on a couple of rocks in the sun. I drew quickly, thinking they'd be off before I could finish the scene but both were still about in the same positions by the time we wandered off.

Knock, knock

2010-09-13T14:19:00.000-07:00

One afternoon, from my living room, I heard a loud pecking noise, louder than the sound of Scrub jays cleaning our gutters or the Oak titmouse beating open a sunflower seed on the platform outside the kitchen window. Curious, I went followed the pounding toward the kitchen. There wasn't anything on the feeding platform. Looking out another window, toward the side of the house I spotted a Nuttall's woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii) drilling a hole into the wooden fence attached to our house.Once he saw me, he moved about the fence then a tree above it, and finally left the yard. Although I often see these woodpeckers foraging in the canopy of the valley oak in our backyard, I haven't seen them in our front yard since early spring.

Night-heron is back at Lake Ralphine

2010-09-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

Last week I suddenly began to see and hear birds back in the woods and along the water at Howarth Park. I generally don't walk around the lake, mostly because the trail can be crowded and because I find very few fungi along that trail. But there aren't any fungi at this dry time of year and as the summer ended it seemed to be the most exciting part of the park, so I've begun or ended many of my walks with a turn around Lake Ralphine. The other day I was rewarded when I spotted a Black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) hunting at the far end of the lake. There was even a shady spot for me to sit down and draw. The heron tolerated my intrusion for a while then picked his or her way into the overhanging willows and out of my view.

While visiting All About Birds to find out if it's possible to tell male night herons from female, I followed a link to some wonderful bird sketches by Maria Coryell-Martin, the September 2010 artist of the month at All About Birds.

Oh, and although All About Birds makes no mention of difference between male and female, oiseaux-birds.com describes the female as slightly smaller, paler and with shorter nape feathers than the male.

Early fall morning at Howarth Park

2010-09-05T16:47:00.000-07:00

One of the really great things about field sketching is that you never really know what you will find. Some days, it seems that there's something I want to draw every few steps and there are days when I can't find anything I want to draw.

One morning at the end of August I found a hodgepodge of little wonders going on at Howarth Park. First I spotted a crayfish wandering awkwardly on the trail above the shore of Lake Ralphine. Lately I've seen at least one every time I walk on the lake, if I'm early enough. This one froze into the most threatening position it could muster and stayed that way until I unthinkingly moved my arm outward, which caused him to back up, tip over, right himself and head briskly, if clumsily, to the safety of the water. I was able to get a good look at his remarkable face before that happened. I also discovered that there are two stubby little legs just under his mouth centered between the claws, something I'd never noticed before, since I don't usually get a lot of face time with the crayfish.

Chloe and I wandered away from the lake and up onto the south ridge where the sun was getting very hot. I walked as quietly as possible which allowed me to sneakily get closer to western fence lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis) along the trails before they'd skitter off under rocks. There were several very small ones that weren't quite as quick to disappear as the larger lizards.

Finally, we stopped off to check on the Skilton's skinks (Plestiodon sketonianus) that we'd seen in early August. They weren't there and it looks as though something bigger may have taken over their place. Chloe sniffed around under the rock with great interest which ruled out a snake (she's terrified of them) and suggested rodent, a species of great interest to her. We took refuge in the shade of a blue oak (Quercus douglasii), in the process irritating a western gray squirrel (Sciurus griseus) a fair distance away from us. She stopped traveling through treetops to stamp her front paw at me, something I've seen several of these squirrels do when aggravated. When the stamping didn't get the desired result she ran down the tree and off away from us.

I sat a while on the edge of an old quarry, gathering my thoughts and deciding which trail to follow next when a large speckled fly flew up and hovered by my hand. It landed on the rock I was perched on and rested for a bit, giving me the opportunity to quickly sketch it so that I could take it home and try to identify it later. It appears to belong to tribe Anthracini.

2010-09-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was hearing the loud calls of a group of about four Belted kingfishers (Ceryle alcyon) as I walked around Lake Ralphine. The other day a male actually sat still for a while on a low hanging branch, long enough for me to sketch him. This group of kingfishers are rowdy birds, yelling loudly and chasing each other around and across the lake.

One day I watched as a young Cooper's hawk (Accipiter cooperii) flew in and perched in the same tree as one of the kingfishers. The kingfisher began to screech and dive-bombed the hawk several times. The hawk maintained it's post and it's equilibrium and the kingfisher eventually flew off, screaming her displeasure for all the world to hear. These are not shy and retiring birds!

Because I was drawing at a distance and my eyesight isn't quite what it once was, I thought that the kingfisher had yellow eyes. When I got home and began to research the species, I was surprised to find that their eyes are dark and blend into the dark teal of their head feathers very nicely. What I thought were yellow eyes are two white spots placed just in front of the eyes. The only reference I found that made any attempt to explain the purpose of the eye spots was in The American Midland Naturalist, University of Notre Dame, 1974:

...kingfishers, when about to dive, appear to be using the two white spots in front of the eyes as sighting devices along the line of the bill to fix their prey and, by doing so, possibly to correct for the refraction of water.

Well, it's not the most satisfying explanation but will have to do for now.

For more about Belted kingfisher:
Audubon.org
The American Midland Naturalist
All About Birds
Wikipedia

Wasps and water

2010-08-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

After a cool, foggy summer, northern California seems to have decided to make up for all the lost heat in two days. Yesterday it was 106 degrees F (41.1 C) here in Santa Rosa. After lunch I dragged myself outside to water our lettuce and carrot seedlings and noticed a lot of wasp activity in and around the bird bath. After the sun had moved to the other side of our house, I spent some time (in the shade) spying on the wasps in my garden.

Our front yard has plants that attract honey bees (Apis mellifera), California carpenter bees (Xylocopa sp.) and the paper wasps (Polistes dominula). On sunny afternoons they all buzz harmoniously about some sages and oregano, drinking nectar. I've also noticed that the wasps spend a good deal of time visiting our lettuce patch, landing on the leaves and moving about for a minute or less then leaving. During our heat wave the wasps, and only the wasps, have been drinking and lounging in the water in our little bird baths. There seem to be three approaches: 1) fly by, dip toes in water, then land on edge of container and drink, 2) drop onto the water and float for a bit while sipping, 3) hover above the water, dipping frequently to sip. The wasps appeared to be utterly unconcerned by my presence. I sketched some more this afternoon, as the coastal influence began to reestablish itself (the fog's returning!), and was interested to note that the wasps stopped drinking from the bath when the temperature dropped into the mid- or low 90s.

These wasps are recent immigrants to our continent. Natives of Europe, they somehow found their way to Massachusetts in 1981 and then spread across the country with great haste. In some areas of the northeast they appear to be replacing native paper wasps. Their long hind legs and slender bodies make it easy to distinguish them from the similar looking yellow jacket (Vespula sp.).

Oh, and as to why they hang out in our lettuce? We often water it at noon on warm days. I suspect that the wasps find the sheltered, shaded source of water appealing at that time of day.

For more information than you'll ever need about European paper wasps, check out these web sites:
Living with bugs
Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences
Wikipedia
Michigan State University
Garden Friends & Foes
Bug of the month: Articles about Pacific Northwest Insects

On Lake Ralphine

2010-08-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

Over the years, the people who fish at Lake Ralphine have created several little clearings in the brush and grasses that grow along the edge of the water. I've discovered that many of them, especially at the gunky end of the lake, are great places to sit and wait for...whatever. Some days there's just not a lot happening. Other days, I can't draw all of the action that's going on and have to choose.

This particular day there wasn't a whole lot to see, except for a few turtles poking their heads above the water and drifting, and a black phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) perched in small trees or shrubs on the other side of the lake, waiting for insects to fly by. One minute it was there and the next it wasn't.

Waiting for lunch

2010-08-21T16:06:00.000-07:00

In northern California it's been gray and cold every morning, which is when I usually like to walk. I much prefer cooler weather to warmer weather, but find that after a summer of chilly mornings, even I yearn for sun and warmth. With that in mind, I delayed my walk on Monday and left at 9:30 a.m. instead of my usual 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. The sun was just coming out as I arrived at the park and I joyfully left my sweatshirt in the car as I began my walk. I was thrilled at the play of light and dark, even in the nearly noon sun, which is usually too glaring and harsh for my taste. The end of my walk was spent at Chloe's favorite spot, the picnic area by the edge of Lake Ralphine, the place where ground squirrels have little fear and a dog can drool and tremble as the youngest squirrels play double-dare with her. At the same time, several of the squirrels watched every human that entered the area, waiting for handouts. I captured a couple of them before their wishes were fulfilled by a young girl with a bag of chips.

Crayfish cove

2010-08-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Chloe and I walked around Lake Ralphine before the sun came out from behind the thick blanket of fog that's been a regular part of our summer this year. We had the place mostly to ourselves and wandered along enjoying the quiet. As we reached the far end of the lake I saw some movement on the ground, out of the corner of my eye, and stopped to see what it might be. I was surprised to find several crayfish roaming about a small beach. I should mention that we've encountered several individuals, over the past couple of weeks, clumsily hoisting themselves over rocks and up small hills near the water and I've wondered what might be bringing them out of the water. This was a
large party which Chloe and I crashed with great enthusiasm. Most of the crayfish backed themselves into the lake, waving their claws menacingly, and disappeared under rocks. I sat down on one of the larger boulders, thinking I'd wait quietly and see if they'd come back out, and was surprised by a large crayfish hiding underneath my boulder and gesturing wildly at me to back off. I moved over to the next rock, out of the trapped crayfish's sight and waited. Those in the water slowly began to mill about and some even headed my way, but as soon as they saw me, did that strange backward crayfish shuffle and hid. In the meantime, the landlocked fellow edged his way back into the water and glared at me from behind a submerged rock.

Hikers and fishermen began to appear and I decided to continue my walk and come back to what I now call Crayfish cove another day.

The next morning I walked along the same trail, excited about what I might find in the cove. Sadly, there weren't any crayfish on land, but looking closely in the water revealed several of them partly hidden under rocks. I began to sketch the underwater scene but the crayfish disapproved and all disappeared as I sketched. I was sorry to see them go but enjoyed sketching the submerged rocks anyway.

A week later, I still hadn't found any crayfish roaming about but noticed that the water level was quite a bit higher, covering much of the beach with water. Perhaps, the crayfish had been disoriented by the lower water level. I still favor the notion that they were just having a really fine party that spilled over from night to day and I got there for the grand finale.

On the rocks

2010-08-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

There's a place in Howarth Park that Chloe and I both like to go and hang out. It's rocky and was partially quarried at some point in history and is easily reached from one trail. If you walk out across the rocks you can look far down on another trail. Or you can just sit in the middle and bask in the sun. If you stay a while you might see some deer toward the lower trail. If you stay quiet long enough lizards come out and bask, too, and birds fly about the blue oaks (Quercus douglasii) that grow in between the rocks.

The sun was just beginning to warm things and Chloe and I were bouncing from rock to rock when I saw a flash of blue sticking out from under the rock I was about to leap onto. Chloe leapt onto the rock before I could stop her and the blue disappeared. I called her back and we sat down to wait out what I knew would be a Skilton's skink (Plestiodon skiltonianus). After a while a striped head poked out and then, with movement more like a snake than another lizard, the blue tailed skink traveled around the rock, clearly checking us out, it's shiny scales glistening as the sun finally broke free of the fog.

I wondered, the first time I saw one of these beauties, why it would have a screaming blue tail. Although no one knows for sure, it's believed that the tail attracts a predator who grabs it and loses it's meal as the tail breaks free, letting the skink escape. A new tail will eventually grow back, and be just as detachable as the first one was. A skink with a bright tail is a young skink and, during breeding season in the spring, the head, chin and, sometimes, the sides, turn bright orange.

After a while the skink wandered off to take care of more important things and I noticed a very young looking Western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) perched inconspicuously on another rock. At first it seemed to be dashing down the rock to eat grass seeds but that made no sense, since lizards are carnivorous, so I looked more closely and discovered that some ants or termites were flying out of the ground just below the rock. With what looked like very little effort that little lizard caught five insects in about two minutes! Looking around carefully with my binoculars, I spotted another young lizard blending beautifully into the rock it sat upon.

California herps: Skilton's skink
California herps: California skinks
Wild herps
The Source Weekly
Western Connecticut State University
Wikipedia

Around Lake Ralphine

2010-08-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

Lake Ralphine was created in 1882 when a dam was built on a tributary of Santa Rosa Creek. The end near the dam is shallow and full of garbage, water weeds and logs. I guess it's warm, too, because I often see turtles floating near the surface when it's sunny. Last week I walked around the lake at the end of my morning walk, instead of at the beginning. I was hoping to see dragonflies and damselflies. Instead, I saw turtles on logs, on rocks and, amazingly, one on the shore. Most of the time I can't tell, for sure, what kind of turtle I'm looking at. This one, though, was basking on the shore, just below the trail around the lake and continued to do so, while I sketched her. The red mark on her face easily identified her as a red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans), not a native of our area. Although this species is native to the Mississippi valley in the United States, it has spread throughout the world as a pet that's often released in nearby ponds and lakes.

I try to cram as many sketches on one page of my sketchbook as I can, which is why I've also included a sketch of a Lesser goldfinch (Spinus psaltria) singing it's heart out on a trail in the park. I wish I could draw it's gorgeous song. It's a complex, variable one that often fools me into thinking I'm hearing some other bird that I've never heard before. The sample at All About Birds gives you an idea, although it seems rather paltry compared to the song this bird was singing while I sketched him.

The little varmints in the right corner are Chloe's favorites, California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi). I'm quite fond of them, too and we watched them for a while at boat dock picnic area before leaving the park for the day.

For more about Red-eared sliders:
Wikipedia
San Francisco State Department of Geography

Lesser goldfinch:
All About Birds

Feathers and spiders

2010-07-29T20:38:00.000-07:00

In the past couple of weeks I've been finding bird feathers littering the earth, just about everywhere I walk. Most of the feathers I find are from American crows (), but I've also found others at Howarth, including this 13 cm long owl feather.

Looking in my Sibley Guide to Birds, I found three owls that might dwell in Howarth Park.

I didn't think I'd be able to identify the owl this feather came from but The Feather Atlas has given me a tentative identification of a Western Screech Owl (Megascops kennicotti), a small nocturnal owl that's equally at home in open woodland and urban and suburban settings. The reason I know it's an owl feather is that, when I found another one a few weeks ago, my friend, JoAnn identified it immediately by the fine hairs covering the whole feather, which appear to help muffle the sound of the wings moving through the air, allowing the owl to fly silently.

While drawing the owl feather I noticed a lovely spider and web stretched across my outdoor work space (our umbrella-covered patio table). At this time of year, these webs can literally be run into just about anywhere! Even though they're large and usually stretched across an open space, it's easy to miss them when the light is wrong. If that happens to you you'll find yourself snared by the European Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus) that built the web.

The female is the web builder and, apparently, she eats the web and all of the caught prey each night before building a brand new web for the next day.

More about owls:
Wikipedia

and about feathers:
Earthlife

and spiders:
Nick's Spiders
Wikipedia
Bug Guide

Grass, insects, birds and rodents

2010-07-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I drove south to the outskirts of Rohnert Park to visit Crane Creek Regional Park. It's small but full of treasures. It's in open grassland and home to many wildflowers in the spring, as well as many birds and hawks that I don't usually find in the more heavily wooded Howarth Park.

The grasses were as tall as I am and bleached pale tan, looking quite lovely against a brilliantly blue sky. On one, I found a rather large (2cm long), colorful insect and sketched it. Insects aren't always amenable to being sketched. Imagine a giant insect hovering over you and peering at you through a magnifying glass and you get the idea. Anyway, this one was a very cool customer and more or less ignored me as I drew. Later I was able to identify it as a Bordered plant bug (Largus sp.).

The bird sketch was an attempt to capture the markings of a Lark sparrow (Chondestes grammicus) that I saw feeding it's offspring on a trail. They're lovely little birds but their markings are like a jigsaw puzzle to me and it'll take some more study to capture them.

In summer, I rarely think about ticks at Howarth Park. They seem to disappear when the rain stops. At Crane Creek, I wandered off the trail to try to blend into the scenery and get some birds sketched, without taking my usual precautions against the nasty little bugs. The grass had formed several inches of matted, bouncy padding above the ground and it was odd to sit on, and I worried about Chloe and the many foxtails surrounding us, so, after only a few minutes, I picked up my pack and my dog and went back to the trail. For the next several hours I kept finding ticks on my body. Ick! Chloe came away unscathed, amazingly. Once I'd gotten them all off, I wondered why there were so many at Crane Creek and so few at Howarth and came to only one conclusion -- rodents! Crane Creek is a haven for the California vole, a rodent that loves open, grassy places. Although I only saw one that day, I surmise that the wet winter and plentiful grass probably caused a population explosion of the little varmints, which in turn caused a population explosion of the ticks. These weren't deer ticks but I didn't save any to sketch and identify. I do keep meaning to do that but when I find them I only want to see them gone. Anyway, I'll stick to the trails for now and make sure to button my sleeves and tuck my socks into my boots the next time I'm there!

The "other" swallow

2010-07-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

At just about any location in Howarth Park I can look up and see Violet-green swallows (Tachycineta thalassina) circling above me. In the past few months, while sketching ground squirrels at the edge of Lake Ralphine, I almost always see some Violet-green swallows flying low over the water to catch insects along with another swallow that moves so fast that I've never been able to tell much more than that it was brown. I always meant to look it up when I got home and always forgot by the time I got here.

Today it was cold when I set out on my walk so I just kept moving, hoping that the sun would come out from behind the fog and warm things up. A few Violet-green swallows circled overhead but it seemed that most other birds were huddled up somewhere trying to stay warm. The light was rather gray and dingy, not very conducive to sketching, so I found myself walking just for the sake of walking, a pleasant change from my usual industrious search for something to draw. I enjoyed the quiet and the muted colors and, most of all, the opportunity to keep my hands warm in my pockets.

Chloe likes to go the long way around Lake Ralphine and today I indulged her. Toward the end of the trail around the lake, as I reached the dam that marks the beginning of the end of the walk, I heard the unmistakable sound of young birds calling for food. Looking out toward the lake I saw three little puffed out birds sitting on a snag, with their heads popping out of the fluffy down just enough to call out with great frequency. I immediately recognized them as young "other" swallows and began to sketch, thinking they'd be gone in moments. They stayed right where I found them, except once when something big flew nearby but out of my range of vision. That caused them to flutter off of their perch and circle wildly until they settled back down and resumed their positions on the snag. Both parents flew by frequently and dropped food into the open beaks without landing or stopping. The youngsters fluttered their wings and called out loudly each time they saw a swallow fly over, even when it wasn't one of their parents. I sketched for 45 minutes and, at the end, one parent came and perched on the snag for a very brief time, until the other parent came and did some sort of maneuver that caused the first parent to go flying again and then they both landed and stayed on the snag before taking off once again.

Now I know what to call "other" swallow --- Northern rough-winged swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis). The name comes from the series of barbed or hooked primary feathers on the wing, which can be felt, though not seen. No one seems to know why these feathers are barbed.

To learn more about Northern rough-winged swallows visit:
All About Birds
Bird Web
paulknoll.com

Sunday at the park

2010-07-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was able to get myself going early enough to arrive at Howarth Park before the sun emerged from behind the fog and before the other humans began to arrive en masse. Most days that I walk at the park, I walk a counter-clockwise loop through the trails. Today, I was feeling adventurous so I walked clockwise. I always seem to forget what a difference there is when I do this! It's like taking a whole different walk, even though I cover the same trails. The first part of the walk was in the gray, even light of a foggy morning. As the light grew brighter and we headed to higher ground I began to hear birdsong and see dragonflies. Suddenly, the sky was blue and the sun cast dark shadows against brilliantly lit fields and trees. When the light changes that way, I always feel as if I've suddenly entered an entirely different world. I love the gray foggy world, where every spider web is visible and you can look inside and easily see the spiders in the cool, even light. Then the sun comes out and it's world of nearly black shadows and bright washed out colors. The spiders and their webs disappear, unless you look very closely. Suddenly, the strong shadows draw my eyes farther out to the shapes of rocks in yellow fields of dried grasses and the shapes of the shadows in the trees.

I haven't been seeing much of the wilder California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) since breeding season began, but they've begun to be more visible, looking rather majestic, for rodents, in that bright early morning light. One appeared to be surveying it's kingdom in the open, rocky grassland near the edge of the park. I was drawn to the other one by it's call of alarm as it sat on lookout from it's perch above a large brush pile between Howarth Park and Spring Lake Park. I never discovered the cause for alarm and watched it relax as I sketched from a distance.

More about the cemetery hawks

2010-07-18T17:12:00.000-07:00

I'm fascinated by the Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperii) at Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery. Although this species' natural habitat is forests, Cooper's hawks have found the suburbs to be an excellent place to live and raise a family. Their main source of food is other birds and they prefer larger birds, which explains why I've seen several small songbirds perched, with what seemed to be an astounding lack of concern, near the hawks on several occasions. Doves, pigeons, jays and robins are among their preferred meals but they also eat small mammals. In fact, they have become regular visitors at some backyard bird feeders, where the hunting is easy.

Cooper's hawks hunt by flying fast, through the trees, taking their prey by surprise. However, one recent study showed that it's a dangerous way to hunt. According to All About Birds a study revealed old healed fractures in the chests of 23% of more than 300 Cooper's hawk skeletons.

The male is much smaller than the female and submissive to her. When it's time to mate he waits for her vocal encouragement before approaching. It's his job to build the nest then feed her and the nestlings until they fledge.

Cooper's hawks migrate south for the winter which explains why I didn't start seeing the mated pair until April this year.

Sources:
All About Birds
Wikipedia
Project Feeder Watch

It's all happening at...the cemetery

2010-07-17T11:21:00.000-07:00

I hadn't been to Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery since June so last week I thought I'd head on over there and see what I'd been missing. It turns out I'd been missing quite a bit! A family of Black-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) (left) foraged about the trail very industriously. The juveniles have become more difficult to distinguish from the adults as their plumage takes on a more mature look. Young Black phoebes (Sayornis nigrescens) (below) sprang wildly into the air for
insects and then chased each other around and about the oaks with wild abandon.

Remember the Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperii) I saw in April? Their offspring (below) can now be seen perched in the same trees their parents were frequenting last spring. They also perform daring acrobatic flights, flying among the treetops faster than my eyes can follow. This morning I watched one of them amuse himself chasing a Brown creeper (Certhia americana) up and around a tree and then nearly tip over as he landed a bit clumsily, before taking off again and disappearing into the canopy.

Squirrely day

2010-07-12T16:48:00.000-07:00

I love Howarth Park in the early morning. When the sky is clear the sun rises over the eastern ridge creating beautiful shadows among the trees and grasses. On foggy days you can see hundreds, maybe thousands of funnel spider webs woven between grasses and attached to tree trunks. When it's foggy the light is flat and even, allowing you to see things that are invisible on bright, sunny days. If the wind is right you can barely hear the traffic on Summerfield Road and, if you're lucky, songbirds will be starting their day, too, and singing about it.

A week ago I walked on a trail I hadn't visited in a while. It skirts the edge of Howarth Park, where it meets Spring Lake Park. There's a place there where logs and brush are piled up, creating hiding places for California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) and Black-tailed jack rabbits (Lepus californicus). The rabbits freeze in an attempt to be invisible and then kind of lope off when they catch me looking at them. I've yet to be able to get a good sketch of one. One of these days I'm going to have to just park myself in the grasses and wait until they come back from wherever they go when I arrive.

A little farther along the trail I encountered a ground squirrel nestled in the crotch of an Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana). We stared at one another for a while before some runners came along and he scrambled down the tree and disappeared in the tall grass.

Later in the day, I watched one of the western gray squirrels (Sciurus griseus) that roams our neighborhood as she climbed the bean trellis and leap acrobatically onto the bird feeder and vacuumed up most of the seed while the poor, starving birds waited patiently in the apple trees and on the bean trellis. We've tried all sorts of things to prevent the squirrels from raiding the feeder but have finally given up and let them have their way with the food. So, now we buy a little more seed and I get some nice life drawing in return.

Crow party

2010-07-11T14:57:00.000-07:00

One of the sounds of summer in our yard is the plaintive cries of young American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) begging to be fed by their parents. Although a pair built their nest around the corner this year, they like to spend their afternoons in the valley oak in our back yard, often parking the kids there while they go out to find food for them. Our dog, Chloe, listens for the cries of the babies and heads outside when she hears it because it means that she can have the food that doesn't make it into their beaks. This can be anything from bits of donuts to packets of mayonnaise and ketchup. Yum!

Last week, several crows came around at the end of the day, two days in a row, and loudly congregated in some redwoods a block away from our house. I've seen large numbers of them congregate in those same trees as the seasons change, but this was a midsummer party.

The black and white bird in the upper left corner was drawn earlier in the day at Howarth Park. I saw it foraging on a trail but didn't recognize the markings. After watching for a bit I thought it seemed very familiar and then realized it reminded me of a California towhee (Pipilo crissalis) which led me to realize that it was a young Spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus). The adults have such distinctive coloring that this drab youngster fooled me for a few minutes.

A couple of birds on a wire

2010-07-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

Drawing the birds that come to my front yard poses a dilemma. If I sit outside, which is where I'd rather to be, most of the smaller birds just fly right by the nice feeder and the irritating human and her dog. I imagine that they visit feeders all over the neighborhood, so it's like they're on the bus and just skip the stop, traveling right on to the next one.

The rock pigeons (Columba livia) and mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) perch on the phone wire above our sidewalk or on the roof of our house, where I can see their shadows if it's afternoon, and wait. I try to take advantage of the unusual view and sketch bellies, butts and feet, hoping they'll give up and fly down closer. Surely, they're sitting there hoping I'll give up and go inside so they can come and eat. They're always right! If I draw from the kitchen window I cease to be a threat.

Both birds thrive among the company of humans. Although mourning doves are native to North America, the rock pigeon was brought here from Europe in the 1600s. They've been domesticated by humans for about 5,000 years leaving their place of origin impossible to determine.

You can find more information about mourning doves and rock pigeons at All About Birds.

While washing dishes....

2010-07-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

...one night this summer I heard the distinctive call of an Oak titmouse (Baeolophus inornatus) and automatically looked out the window to see what it was up to. Recently, a pair of these small birds had begun bringing their offspring to our feeder and I found that the four youth were careening madly around our yard and the yard next door, gathering seeds, chasing one another and generally behaving like rowdy teenagers. While the remaining dishes sat in the sink I was able to make several sketches before they took off.

Unexpected guest

2010-07-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

Summer was slow to arrive here this year. One evening, in mid-June, I sat at the kitchen table, sketching birds as they came to our feeders. I was pleasantly surprised to see a Chestnut-backed chickadee fly furtively to a platform feeder and eat some millet or sunflower seeds. Like the oak titmice that are frequent fliers in our yard, the chickadee grabs a seed, places it between it's toes and stabs with it's beak until the seed breaks open. This is a much different method of shelling the seeds than the California towhees, house finches, house sparrows, mourning doves and rock pigeons all of whom use their stout beaks to break open the seeds.

Chickadees eat mostly insects and I can only surmise that the insect population was still low because of the cool weather. I haven't seen a chickadee at the feeder or anywhere else since that day.

For more about Chickadees visit All About Birds.

Ground squirrels at the shore

2010-07-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

Howarth Park in the winter is usually quiet and, if you stay off the main trails, not at all crowded. In the summer it's another story. Cyclists careen along the trails as though they were at the racetrack while teenage couples find a bit of privacy in the woods. Families stroll about, enjoying nature while the sound of Camp WaTam counselors leading young campers in rousing cheers and familiar camp songs as they hike about the park.

If I'm able to get myself going early, its still quiet enough to see some deer or a jackrabbit and to hear birds singing. Today, though, I was a bit pokey getting out the door and once I'd found a parking spot, Chloe and I had to navigate around the new group of campers milling about the edge of the parking lot before we could even enter the park. We skirted along the edge of Lake Ralphine and were surprised and delighted to find a California ground squirrel catching the early morning sun on a big rock overlooking the lake. She moved a few times, but always returned, giving me several chances to sketch her in her relaxed state.

I finally dragged myself away and about 12 feet farther along, a very young ground squirrel was busy stuffing grass seeds into his mouth just as fast as he could. He was 3 feet from the trail and both Chloe and I stood transfixed by the brazenly fearless youngster. At one point, a squirrel that looked very parental appeared at a safer distance to keep an eye on things and then disappeared again. I'm constantly amazed to see the traits that we call human so evident in very non-human species. By next time this year, if he survives, this young squirrel will have acquired the same caution that his parents exhibit. For now, I'm delighted by and fearful for the youngsters I see all over the park and in my neighborhood, fearlessly discovering the world.

Broken butterfly

2010-06-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

The weekend was very hot and windy, an unsettling combination around these parts. One afternoon I walked downtown for an iced latte and on the way home I found a tiny, tattered, dead butterfly on the sidewalk at a busy intersection. I cupped it carefully in my hand and brought it home so I could draw it and discover what kind of butterfly it was. I was pleased that my sketches made it quite easy to identify, using Butterflies through Binoculars: The West by Jeffrey Glassberg, as Mylitta Crescent or Phyciodes mylitta, a fairly common butterfly of the western United States and Mexico. The length of the butterfly's body was 13 mm or 1/2 inch.

When I checked into flickr this morning I was delighted to see that, in southwest Florida, Elizabeth Smith had also painted a butterfly that she found, a Gulf fritillary.

I've been working out how to sketch with color when I'm out in the field. Having spent most of my life in a studio this has been an amazingly complex problem to solve! I sketched the underside of the butterfly with watercolor and the upperside with colored pencil. I liked both media for this project. The watercolor went on faster but is harder for me to work with quickly as it's been a difficult medium for me. The colored pencils were a bit slower but are easier for me to work with when I'm not in my comfort zone. I'm also looking forward to experimenting with using both together.

Mushrooms. In June.

2010-06-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

I hadn't been to Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery in a while and went by the other day to see what I might find there. After sketching some lovely Clarkia in the garden, I wandered about the gravestones and found several Amanita sp. mushrooms fruiting under live oak. Even the most newly emerged mushrooms were pretty dried out but it was still fun to see mushrooms in Santa Rosa in June.

I don't know what to call this one

2010-06-09T20:03:00.000-07:00

It was nearly noon and, as I walked on a trail at Howarth Park, two damselflies gracefully attached damselflies drifted past me, piquing my curiosity. When they landed on a blade of grass I began sketching. I cleverly deduced that they were mating...until I saw that he appeared to be depositing sperm into her head or upper thorax. Curious, I looked on the web to see what I could find out about the sex lives of damselflies.

What I found would certainly be worthy of any soap opera, if these were humans and not insects! The two that I saw may have been courting -- the male chooses a female and attaches himself to her using special apparatus on his abdomen and her thorax. If she's interested she'll raise her abdomen to collect sperm that he's placed in his second abdominal segment. Females mate repeatedly but the male is capable of removing sperm from a previous donor. The last donor's sperm is the sperm which will be used for fertilization. Which leads to the second possible scenario regarding the two damselflies I sketched. Some males will remain attached to the female after mating to ensure that no other males have the chance to remove the sperm that they've contributed.

I drew the male in the upper left when the pair had changed position on the stalk. The pair moved again before I could draw the female.

For more about damselflies and dragonflies visit these sites:
Cirrus Image
The University of Texas Arlington
New World Encyclopedia
Ron Lyons

I won a prize!!!

2010-06-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was pleasantly surprised to find that Elizabeth Smith, the creator of one of my favorite blogs, A Nature Art Journal in Southwest Florida, has given Just Around the Corner the Beautiful Blogger Award. I'm honored she chose me. Now it's my turn to choose four of my favorite blogs for the award and to tell you ten things about me. I'm going to enjoy choosing the next group of award recipients and grit my teeth while telling ten random things about myself. Ugh!

First, the fun part!

Ken Januski's art, birds, nature is a wonderful exploration of all three and endlessly interesting, not just for Ken's marvelous images of birds but also because he's fearlessly transparent about his process without ever being cringeworthy, an amazing feat!

Clive Christy's Art and the Aesthete is a celebration of printmaking and printmakers, many of whom have I would never had known about if it weren't for this blog. Clive's thoughtful articles and wonderful examples of each artist's works make this one of my favorite destinations when I'm in front of my computer.

At Jana's Journal Jana Bouc explores the Bay Area of California with sketchbook in hand and her descriptions of what she finds are witty and engaging.

Finally, Steve Wilson both blogs and lives at Blue Jay Barrens in southern Ohio. He writes about and photographs his back yard. Okay, it's a pretty big back yard, but I love that all of his blog is focused on this one piece of property.

Those ten not so random facts about me:

1) When I can't draw I feel as though a part of me is missing.
2) I've been drawing pictures since I could hold a pencil.
3) My parents encouraged me to pursue art and I began taking art lessons at the Cleveland Museum of Art when I was about 10 years old.
4) I studied corporate design in college.
5) Then dropped out and learned to be a hairdresser.
6) I began drawing pictures for newspapers.
7) Which led to a career as an editorial illustrator and a move from New York state to California.
8) And a brief interlude as a comic creator.
9) I didn't figure out that I could combine my love of drawing and love of the outdoors until I was over 50.
10) I like stories better than lists.

Lions, tigers and...hummingbirds? Oh my!

2010-06-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

Tritelia laxa are suddenly popping up in sunny, rocky places in Howarth Park, looking quite regal surrounded by the grasses that are quickly turning to straw. I paused in an open, rocky area to sketch one of them and enjoyed sketching in sunshine instead of gray skies for a change.

Toward the end of my sketching session, as I was adding color, I heard a muted version of the popping noise that occurs as part of a male Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna) mating flight. After the third time I looked straight up to see if I could find the fellow and determine why he was performing his flight directly over my head. When I turned around I found that he was hovering a short distance away from me. When he saw that he'd gotten my attention he flew straight at me then veered off at the last minute and landed in a nearby manzanita. I've read that hummingbirds can be fiercely aggressive and can only guess that his mate was nesting nearby or that he really wanted the flower for himself! Whatever it was, I decided the best approach would be a retreat. I finished my sketch and removed myself from the vicinity.

Young ground squirrels

2010-06-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

Recently, Chloe and I went to check on the California ground squirrel colony that lives at Camp WaTam, a day camp at Howarth Park in Santa Rosa. Camp starts this week and we won't be able to visit them on weekdays for the rest of the summer. This group of squirrels has taken up residence under two giant portable containers that were placed in the park several years ago. Today, I saw a youngster sitting outside the container and stopped to see if I could capture her youthful demeanor in a quick sketch. She stared at me while I stared right back and sketched. After a short time, two curious siblings poked their heads out of the holes leading to their home and they joined the staring party. Soon, mom came to see what was going on. She kept a watchful eye on her youngsters who kept a watchful eye on me until they grew bored and wandered back under the container.

Blue-bellied lizard

2010-06-04T19:38:00.000-07:00

I see and hear so many lizards as I walk that you'd think I'd know more about these sun-loving creatures. Alas, I've mostly ignored them. I'll see them lounging on warm rocks and hear them as they furtively skitter off the rocks to take cover when I walk by. Lately, I've been sitting on those rocks and waiting for birds or squirrels to appear, and while waiting I've been visited by a few lizards. Since birds have been pretty scarce I've turned my attention to these prehistoric looking creatures. If I keep a distance and use my binoculars, I've found that some are rather bold and, perhaps, as curious about me as I am about them.

My first surprise was that most of the lizards I've been seeing have blue bellies. Beautiful, iridescent blue bellies. Wow! My husband, a veterinarian, knew right away what they were. Not surprisingly, one of their common names is Blue belly. They're also known as Western Fence Lizards and the official latin name is Sceloporus occidentalis.The blue belly tells me that this lizard is an adult male.

Greg told me that they are slightly toxic to cats. Which reminded me of a cat that lived with me long ago, Henry, who became extremely gaunt one summer and lost his appetite. Worried that something terrible was wrong with him, I took him to a different veterinarian, as I hadn't yet met Greg. She told me that he was probably eating lizards. Sure enough, David, my next door neighbor, told me that he'd been finding lizard carcasses in his driveway lately and wondered what was going on.

Apparently, these lizards are more than pretty blue bellies. In areas where they're found there is a decreased chance of contracting Lyme disease. According to a California Academy of Science article a protein in the blood of these lizards kills the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. When a western black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) bites the lizard it's blood is cleansed of the Borrelia burgdorferi. Then, if it bites you or me, it's just a tick bite, not the beginning of an unpleasant disease.

You can read more about Blue bellies at:
Wikipedia
California Academy of Science
Kaweah Oaks

Ordinary but new to me

2010-06-03T14:35:00.000-07:00

Today I found a group of small wildflowers I've never seen before. They were poking out of hard dirt along a trail in Howarth Park near the edge of Spring Lake Park. They're quite small and I had a hard time seeing detail even with my trusty magnifier. Once I got home I looked through my field guides and have tentatively identified them as Allium amplectens, a locally common member of the onion family. They're also called Narrowleaf onion although there weren't any leaves to be found by the time I stumbled upon them. According to the USDA they're found in the United States and Canada in the states on the west coast and can be considered invasive.

In the mood

2010-06-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

I was in my living room and kept hearing loud finch song, but a different song than I usually hear, more insistent and much louder. I went quietly to the window and saw this fellow literally dancing about my feeder with as much zeal as anyone on Dancing with the Stars around an extremely indifferent female who kept eating black oil sunflower seeds, stopping only to snap at this guy when he got too close. I felt badly for him. If I were a house finch I would've been utterly captivated by his charming performance and followed him to the moon.

Birds at the feeder

2010-05-27T18:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm feeling almost like I'm back living on the Great Lakes again, what with all this spring rain. It was too wet to go to the park today so I sketched some of the large crowd of songbirds suddenly visiting our feeder again, after weeks of quiet. There are now three young oak titmice visiting. One of them spends extraordinary amounts of time at the feeder calling to mind the child who eats too much candy and ice cream. We now have a family of house sparrows coming around and there are some house finches courting around the black oil sunflower seeds. We had covered the carrot bed under the feeder and found that all the birds were clamoring to get in and clean out the fallen sunflower and millet seeds, so we took off the cover and they've been weeding voraciously, before the seeds ever sprout.

The mourning doves never stopped coming around but seem more tolerant of the smaller birds. These birds are surprisingly predictable. Everyone visits morning, noon and night and they follow a fairly rigid progression. First the titmice, then the house finches, then the house sparrows. The mourning doves come along next and then a pair of pigeons. At the very end are the scrub jays, who seem a bit more relaxed now that their offspring has fledged. Although most of the birds will feed with each other, all of the songbirds scatter when the jays come around, not surprisingly, given their murderous behavior. The mourning doves seem unfazed by the jays and usually remain on the feeder, preening then dozing.

Bird babies

2010-05-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

Now that I know what to look for I'm seeing fledging songbirds just about everywhere, including my own front yard where a pair of Oak titmice (Baeolophus inornatus) have been bringing their two offspring for fast food at the feeder. At Howarth Park I spotted two young dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) wandering about the underbrush and watched the mother come and feed one of them.

A little farther along the trail an Oak titmouse fluttered it's wings and whined (bird style) repeatedly from a low branch until one of it's parents brought some food and stuffed it in. And the day before a wild gang of oak titmouse youngsters careened around in some oaks while I ate lunch and sketched. One was apparently as curious about me as I was about her and landed in a manzanita shrub about four feet away from me, checking me out carefully before zooming crazily back to the rest of the birds.

In the same area, a group of White-breasted nuthatches roamed through blue oak and when they left there was one young bird still sitting, very still, on a branch high up for about ten minutes. The only time it moved was when a Turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) flew over, causing the nuthatch to slither (that's the only way I can describe the apparently effortless movement) to the lower surface of the branch, until the vulture had passed. Several minutes later the nuthatch walked up to the higher part of the tree and I lost track of it.

Monkey puzzle tree

2010-05-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

This strange and rather prehistoric-looking tree stands in a park in downtown Santa Rosa. It's a Monkey Puzzle tree (Auracaria araucana), native to Chile, where it's the national tree, and Argentina. I discovered, the first time I saw the tree, that the leaves must be handled with great care or their stiff, sharp points will stab you painfully. According to Wikipedia the seeds are edible, so I'll be sure to try some when the cones fall. In the name of science, of course! It takes thirty to forty years for a Monkey Puzzle to begin producing seeds and the tree can live as long as a thousand years.

I've found three others in this county and have wanted to sketch one for a while. I was in the park enjoying an iced latte on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and decided to give it a try. I think I'll have to come back with some bigger paper and color sometime. In the meantime, you can find out more about Monkey puzzle trees at Wikipedia and in an article by Dr. T. Ombrello of the Union County College biology department in New Jersey.

Calochortus

2010-05-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

We have a lovely family of wildflowers in California, called Calochortus or mariposa lilies. They're also found further east, to Nebraska, south to Guatemala and north to British Columbia. But twenty-eight of them bloom in California. Our local native plant society sells a few (legally obtained) bulbs each fall and I was excited to try growing them in my yard. Although Calochortus tolerate poor soil they can't compete with the alien weeds that grow prolifically in my garden. I didn't keep up with the weeding and, after the second year, lost six Calochortus luteus. The next year I planted in pots and had some success. I also added a different variety, Calochortus venustus, which seems to be a bit more tolerant of my garden and the squirrel that repeatedly digs around in the pot. It threw it's first bloom last week and I made some sketches. Now the Calochortus luteus, which is the species that I see growing naturally in my area, has begun blooming in Foothill Regional Park. The first sketch is C. luteus which is a bright yellow and which I hope to paint in color before the bloom ends!

You can find out more about Calochortus at these websites:

Wikipedia
Pacific Bulb Society

Drawing from life and trying to get it right. Sigh.

2010-05-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

After many years of drawing from photographic reference material, I've sworn off the stuff and am learning to gather my visual information from life only. Easier said than done! Plants and fungi hold obligingly still while one draws them, but birds and mammals seem to be in constant motion. I try to look and memorize and then, as I start to draw, realize that I can hardly remember a thing. It's very frustrating. Trying to learn this new skill has brought up troubling memories of being very young and learning to ride a bicycle. I persist because I actually did...eventually...learn to ride that bike.

Although I see dark-eyed juncos of the Oregon race frequently I haven't done any sketches of them before, because they tend to dart away as soon as I point my binoculars in their direction. Today, though, as I sat on the dusty shores of Pond B at Foothill Regional Park in Windsor, CA, I was pleasantly surprised to find one bathing nearby. She bathed once, left, then came back and bathed some more. Her bathing style was fairly sedate. The California towhees that use our birdbath at home bathe with complete abandon and much flapping and splashing. This junco got in the water, jiggled about a few times, sat there quietly then left. When she was done she went off into some nearby grasses and preened then rested. Without binoculars it was impossible to spot her but, hey, she was holding still! She stayed put until someone walked on a trail about a foot from where she rested and then flew off into some manzanita nearby.

I didn't add color to these sketches until I got home. Once I started painting I thought I would consult David Sibley's Guide to Birds to make sure I got the colors right. Which led to me getting the color wrong because the juncos I've been seeing have so little of the rusty brown on their flanks that it's almost invisible. Note to self: trust your own memory and just hold off on the painting until you can go back and confirm what you thought you saw or didn't see.

More juncos

2010-05-23T19:02:00.000-07:00

The other day I was surprised to find birds singing loudly all over Howarth Park. It's been fairly quiet the past few weeks. I was even more surprised by two different juncos that flew toward me when I spotted them, scolding and flitting from branch to branch, appearing to do the junco version of getting in my face. In the past few weeks, whenever I've stopped to look at a junco they're gone before I've raised my binoculars. Because I've noticed a few other avian young are fledging it occurred to me that the juncos might be, as well, and that these assertive juncos are watching out for their young. The bird I sketched below was perched in a prominent location and singing loudly, possibly defending his territory.

To beg or not to beg...that is the question

2010-05-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

I spent a luxurious morning sketching at Howarth Park, stopping at Lake Ralphine for lunch and some ground squirrel antics to amuse both Chloe (my dog) and I. I sketched the goose while the ground squirrels were in hiding. The squirrel on hind feet was about 6 feet (1.8 meters) away and appeared to be considering whether I might be hiding food in my backpack and if it would be worth it to come closer to the dog to find out. She decided to keep her distance.

Lumpy is dead

2010-05-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

Six days ago a pair of California towhees (Pipilo crissalis) built a nest in our backyard and lost their three eggs a week after being laid. I thought the culprits were rats but didn't know that there had been an avian dust-up the day they disappeared until my husband told me that there had been jays and towhees yelling loudly most of the morning. That points to our resident bully, a scrub jay that had already attacked and caused the death of a house finch this season and raided the towhee's nest last year in our rose trellis.

Sunday May 9, the day the eggs disappeared, the industrious female began to build another nest, although not in our yard. We saw her several times, gathering nest material, in our front yard. A couple of days later I noticed her resting wearily in one of our garden boxes for a very short time, maybe 15 minutes, before getting back to work. During the last week we often heard the two birds calling to one another and saw both birds at our feeders.

Sunday May 16 just before lunch I was sketching in the kitchen, by the window that looks out on our feeders, when I saw a scrub jay swoop down to the ground, heard two towhees call out in alarm and saw one of them fly off. I figured that the other one flew off in another direction and ate my lunch. After we'd eaten Greg went outside to water some seedlings but came right back in, obviously distressed. He asked me come outside and showed me a crow ripping apart a towhee in the street. We shooed the crow away but the towhee had already been divested of much of it's head. The crow came back and resumed the carnage. We were gone all afternoon but when we returned home Lumpy, as we called the male towhee (in reference to a large lump on the side of his head) was nowhere to be seen. Since he normally spent a great deal of time at the feeders we feared the worst. He had met with some kind of disaster before we noticed him and had been blind in one eye for a while and was missing a foot, making him an easy target for the scrub jay.

California towhees mate for life. The female builds the nest, sits on the eggs and depends on the male to feed her and to help feed the young once they've hatched. I've been unable to find information on single mom towhees but suspect that, if the scrub jay doesn't eat the eggs, they still don't stand much chance of surviving without the male to do his part. And, of course, with the female spending more time away from the nest, the scrub jay will have more chance to eat the eggs.

Our front yard seems rather empty with Lumpy gone. He spent a good part of each day in our front yard, eating at the feeder, bathing in the bird bath and sunning on our front walk. I sketched him several times as he was the least skittish of the birds that visit and I'm going to miss him.

Spring storm

2010-05-13T17:35:00.000-07:00

At this time of year it's usually sunny and warm here in Sonoma County. Yet we've been having some very wintry storms, usually on the weekends, the past few weeks. The weather forecasters said it wasn't supposed to rain until later in the day so I bundled up, grabbed an umbrella and headed for Howarth Park. The parking lot was nearly empty and most of the humans seemed to be traveling the paved trails rather than the dirt trails I favor. The wind blew and the bright green spring foliage glowed fluorescent against the changeable gray skies. Chloe and I got caught in one downpour and waited it out on a rock near an old quarry hole. I drew some of the plants in the area; several grasses, wavy leafed soap plant, Dichelostemma, and a thistle. It reminded me of spring in upstate New York, the place I lived before moving to California.

When the rain stopped we made our way to the lake where the geese had all hunkered down against the wind. I had to finish the sketch at home because my fingers got so cold I couldn't feel the pen I was holding.

Gobble, gobble

2010-05-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

I went looking for Acorn woodpeckers the other day but they weren't there. I thought I'd stay anyway and sketch some grasses and wildflowers while waiting to see if the woodpeckers decided to come and hang out a while. It was a beautiful spring day and I was daydreaming as I walked. Suddenly, the grass beside the trail I was on exploded as a giant bird gracelessly rocketed off the ground and into an oak where it tottered precariously before getting a good grip on the branch it had landed on. My heart pounding wildly, I raised my binoculars to see a turkey hen looking about as frightened as I was feeling. She stared. I stared. I got out my sketchbook. Usually, when I come across turkeys at Howarth Park, they're in flocks and they don't stick around long enough for me to unzip my backpack, let alone get out the sketch book. This one, traveling alone, stayed up in that tree for a good twenty minutes, giving me time to sketch and paint her. Then she careened crazily to the ground and disappeared in some more grass. The woodpeckers never did show up.

Nature is harsh and life really does go on

2010-05-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

Only a week ago I posted about, among other things, a pair of California (Pipilo crissalis) towhees that had nested in a shrub outside of my studio in our backyard. Greg and I were both excited at the prospect of being able to observe a towhee family raised in our backyard, especially since a scrub jay deprived us of the chance a year ago when she raided a nest that we watched towhees build in our rose trellis two years ago.

We discovered her putting the final touches on the nest while sitting in the backyard last Sunday, May 2. I heard the towhees calling to one another and saw her, with straw in her beak, disappear into the shrub. When she was gone I looked for and found the nest.

The first egg appeared the next day and a day later Greg looked when she was gone and counted three eggs. For the next week she spent most of her time on the nest, although toward the end of the week she spent increasing amounts of time away. Each time she left the nest she announced it loudly to her mate, a habit I found convenient for me but I wondered who or what else might find it also convenient to know when there were unattended eggs. I remained hopeful, though, and planned to spend at least one of the days of the weekend parked in the backyard, watching and sketching.

On Saturday, I managed to get a few sketches of the view I most often saw, a tail sticking up over the barely visible nest amidst a flurry of leaves and pink flowers. Sunday it rained, an odd event around here in May. The towhee, who had been spending more and more time away from the nest, left just as I was going into the house for lunch. After I'd eaten I got out my sketching materials and sat under cover with my binoculars. No one was on the nest but I noticed our favorite towhee, Lumpy, lurking about the nest area and looking...well....anxious, if birds exhibit anxiety the same way humans do. Lumpy has a lump on the back of his head and only one foot and was blind in one eye for a while, although the eye seems to have healed. I thought Lumpy was a female and wondered, at first, if she was our nest builder. I watched for over two hours. Lumpy left off sitting on the fence above the nest only once when her mate called from the front yard. By this time, I felt pretty confident that she was a he. I checked the nest which was still unattended. It was too high for me to check the eggs but my growing sense of doom was confirmed when Greg (who's a foot taller than I am) got home and reported sadly that there were no eggs.

We had worried about the location of the nest because the fence it's near wasn't private enough for our neighbor and, a few years ago, he built his own fence onto it, creating a partly hidden runway for the Norway rats that have become a large presence in our neighborhood as their favored habitats have been taken over by humans. We suspect that the eggs were easy picking for them, especially with the loud announcements each time mama towhee left the nest.

Lumpy continued to sit forlornly on the fence until early evening Sunday and I concluded that he's the daddy. I heard them calling back and forth in the yard next to ours and they've both been seen at the front yard feeder. I hope they've found a safer place for their new nest. I hear them calling as I write this.

You can hear the conversational call of the California towhee at Naturesongs.com and learn more about California towhees at:

Wikipedia
All About Birds

Noon at Lake Ralphine

2010-05-05T17:27:00.000-07:00

Chloe and I walked for a long time on a beautiful day after several rather cold and rainy days. I wasn't quite ready to leave the park so we went to the picnic area at Lake Ralphine so that Chloe could look for ground squirrels and I could just look and see what there was to see.

A Western Pond Turtle was sunning on a rock along with some Double-crested cormorants. Canada geese squabbled loudly and the few remaining mallard ducklings cruised by peeping loudly as they went. Two osprey circled overhead, hunting. The ground squirrels were conspicuous in their absence and Chloe was so focused on one of the the spots where they usually congregate that she missed a big fat Norway rat slinking along the edge of the water.

Death, life, sketching

2010-05-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

The Bird Rescue Center called to tell us that the house finch that was attacked by a scrub jay, in our front yard, sustained a broken wing and had to be put to sleep. Last night I saw another pair of house finches courting on the feeder in the early evening. I don't know if the female was the same one, but the finch flock seems more relaxed than they were right after the attack.

Only a few days later I found two nests. In the morning I noticed two Western bluebirds (Sialia mexicana) nesting in a Garry oak in Spring Lake today. I did some quick sketches of the nest site and the male, because he was visible, which I colored later, and plan to go back for some more extended sessions.

Later that same day Greg and I saw a California Towhee (Pipilo crissalis) carrying nest material into a shrub outside of my studio. When she left we looked for and found a nest. It's been a few days and, if the towhees are nesting in the shrub, they are very stealthy. I suspect that they've abandoned this nest and gone elsewhere. Oh! I just looked and an egg has appeared since last night!

Near the water

2010-04-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

A few days ago it was a cold and stormy day, normally an odd thing this time of year in Santa Rosa CA. I love stormy days and trotted off to Howarth Park where Chloe and I had a lovely walk. I'm very happy when the sun shines, but I love dark gray days, especially in the spring, when the brilliant greens just glow against the gray skies. We had the park largely to ourselves and after a walk in the woods we headed to the lake so we could both watch for ground squirrels, which were scrambling about everywhere we looked, enjoying free run of the park with so few humans about. The lake was very dramatic looking with sun then clouds and the water moving with the wind.

Mighty tiny bird

2010-04-24T17:16:00.000-07:00

Lately, as I've walked around Howarth Park, I've noticed that where there are dead branches high up in a tree there's a good chance of finding a male hummingbird perched there. If I sit down and just hang out the bird will usually keep an eye on me but continue about his business. There's one place that has an excellent flat rock nearby where I can sit quietly and sketch. I was able to spend more than an hour there, the other day, and draw the hummingbird as he came and went.

The hummingbird's look changes dramatically in different light and not just on his throat, where the right light reveals a brilliant, sparkly crimson patch. It seems that much of this Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna) has shimmery iridescence that can look dull as dirt in one light and sparkle with color when the light hits differently. It makes him a very exciting bird to observe! He turns his dark brown head and suddenly it sparkles with the most brilliant crimson. He moves slightly on his perch and I can see waves of green on his flank.

In the past month I've seen many birds pairing off to mate and have wondered why the hummingbirds I see always seem to be alone. Why aren't they pairing up like other passerines I see? Apparently, once the birds have mated, they maintain separate residences, presumably to keep the flashy male from alerting predators to the presence of the nest. The female takes on all of the nesting and parenting duties herself while the male spends his days keeping other hummingbirds out of their territory. Hummingbirds are rather fierce and will take on large predators such as hawks and crows. They also engage in harsh brawls with one another, often locking beaks and tumbling to the ground where they continue to fight, although with little physical injury.

I was surprised to see the hummingbird eat several insects and found that although hummingbirds drink a great deal of nectar (carbohydrate), they also need protein, thus the insects.

The small feet of this small bird aren't good for much except perching and I noticed that whenever he wanted to change position, even slightly, he flew rather than "walked" as I've seen other birds do.

I look forward to spending more time sitting in meadows observing and sketching these tiny but fascinating birds.

Sources:
All About Birds
Hummingbird World
World of Hummingbirds

Wild weather and tragedy

2010-04-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a wild and unsettled day. We have so few of those here in northern California that I'm always excited to see one, even if it really should be spring already! First it rained. Then there was sun. Then it hailed while I was doing some dishes. I just had to go outside and be pummeled a bit. When I'd had enough I went back to finish up those dishes. As I looked out the window at our neighbor's wall about three feet away, I saw that one of the house finches had taken shelter under the eaves. Fortunately the dishes were done so I grabbed my sketchbook for what I thought would be a quick sketch, but the finch stayed and when I looked up a bit I saw that his mate was there too, singing loudly and constantly, as she's been doing quite a bit for the past few days.

Earlier in the day I'd seen them displaying courtship behavior several times. She sang while he gathered what I guess were especially tasty seeds which he then brought to her. She fluttered her wings and opened her beak wide at which point he fed her a rather amazing amount of food. Then they both went about their usual business.

My husband, Greg, has been adding compost to our vegetable beds and turning it to prepare for planting. Evidently this is like putting pies on the porch to cool ---the finches and sparrows have been spending more time in the new dirt gathering food than at the feeders. This morning, as we have every year, we put wire covers over the beds to keep neighborhood cats from using our dirt as a rest stop and to protect seedlings from the birds until they're sturdier and less interesting to those birds.

Shortly after the covers went up we noticed the male finch roaming about under one of them collecting food while his intended perched on the cover above him and sang. Each planting season a few birds have gotten inside the covers but always managed to get themselves out so we weren't too concerned. We watched to make sure he'd figure out how to get out and he did in short order so we went about our business as he went about his.

A little while later, I heard a series of bird sounds I'd never heard before and I went outside to see what it was and was horrified to find a scrub jay standing on top of the cover attacking the finch who was underneath and flying around the inside edge, trying to escape, absolutely the worst place he could be because the jay had easy reach there. I shooed the jay away and collected the finch who didn't seem able to fly, while Greg removed the covers from the garden beds. We took the bird off to our wonderful local Bird Rescue Center. They'll be able to tell me in 48 hours if he's going to be all right.

Hunting among the dead

2010-04-20T17:28:00.000-07:00

A pair of Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperii) appear to be nesting somewhere at Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery. In the morning one or both can usually be found perched high up in some mostly leafless trees surrounding a meadow. Unlike the turkey vultures, these birds appear to have a high tolerance for being examined by puny humans far below them. I've been able to do several sketches in the past few weeks. The female is the one I see the most. She's much bigger than her mate and apparently is more of a hunter. I have yet to see either bird catch something but last week I saw the male carrying nest material. Strangely, today I read about another nesting Cooper's hawk in San Jose, California.

Down to earth...for a few moments

2010-04-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

I see turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) all the time. It's nearly impossible to look up and not see one or two circling lazily, sometimes so far up in the sky that it seems almost impossible. I've taken them for granted for years and only once or twice have I seen them at rest. Well, yesterday as I walked along the edge of Howarth Park I was surprised to see three of them perched at the top of a phone pole very near the trail I was on. I stopped and got out my sketchbook and binoculars and began working. I discovered that vultures are very shy, more so than many of the songbirds I try to sketch. Within five minutes the last of the three spread her wings and was gone.

Oddly, the next day I was sketching some wildflowers when two turkey vultures came to roost in some nearby oaks. They seemed unconcerned while I drew the flowers but as soon as I moved around to sketch THEM, both took off even faster than the original three. They were closer so I was able to clearly see their astonishingly strange red heads that seem to emerge from their large bodies like something out of Men In Black. I hope I get the chance to draw more. They're really quite fascinating up close.

Fallen crow

2010-04-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I walked early in the morning, hoping to beat some rain that was headed into town. As I wandered through my neighborhood I found a newly killed crow in the road, still warm, but definitely dead. I've found smaller birds before and have been able to stow them in one of the plastic bags I carry to pick up after my dog but this crow was a BIG bird and wouldn't come close to fitting in the bag so I headed back home for a bigger bag and the car thinking I might have some time for sketching before the rain. By the time I returned home it was raining so I stowed the crow in my refrigerator for the next three days, waiting for the weather to clear so I could draw outside.

I was interested to see that crows have a "mustache" of feathers that turn down over the beak. I also welcomed another chance to examine a bird's foot up close since they're the hardest thing to see through binoculars in the field. Bird's feet are truly amazing! Scaled on top and heavily padded below with small traction "buttons" kind of like those bumps on Dr. Scholl's sandals, these feet are perfectly made for comfortably gripping a branch.

Oddly, I found that drawing a dead bird wasn't as engrossing now that I've spent several weeks drawing live birds in the field. Live birds are much more interesting and exciting to draw.

Unsettled weather and cunning rodents

2010-04-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

Just like everyone else, our weather is rather topsy-turvy these days. Even though it doesn't usually rain around here in April it rained today. Then it was sunny. Then it poured.

I spent some time at the kitchen table watching birds (and a squirrel) at the feeder. A female Nuttall's woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii) appeared but was inclined to grab a seed off the platform and fly off to the neighbor's magnolia tree to eat it. I wasn't quick enough to sketch her at the feeder but, since she spent plenty of time eating in the tree, was able to get a sketch of her back. And the tree. Still working on that quick sketching skill.

And that darned squirrel. We hung a platform feeder a few months ago to attract some of the ground feeding birds, who prefer a feeder that's flat and open rather than the tube feeders. It's brought us mourning doves, oak titmice, California towhees and chestnut-backed chickadees. We also now get visits from a pair of rock pigeons who like to clean up the ground under the platform feeder. When the squirrels found it we found ourselves duking it out with them on an ongoing basis. We moved the feeder down. Then up. Then over. The cunning male squirrel figured out to leap off the roof, leap off the front porch, climb the window screen and leap gracefully onto the platform. At one point, before he'd figured out how to land on it, he'd swing on it and tip all the seed off the platform and onto the ground where he'd have a nice midday meal.

Today we implemented our latest strategy and moved the feeder to a pole away from the house, rather than hanging from the eaves. It took the squirrel exactly 45 minutes to figure out how to climb the pole and swing on up to the platform. We've now covered the pole with vaseline (internet advice chosen over that which recommends buying a 12-gauge shotgun) and are going to buy some bulk peanuts, which are allegedly the food most favored by squirrels, to put in a dish at the base of the feeder. I figure we're already messing with nature by feeding the birds and there always seem to be consequences when you mess with nature. I'm thinking the squirrels are one of our consequences. I don't mind feeding them but not at the expense of the birds. I relish the opportunity to sketch squirrels as well as birds. Of course, now we'll have to watch Chloe in the garden because she likes peanuts, too! That probably means we'll have to find a way to elevate the peanut bowl. Consequences.

At the lake

2010-04-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

It was a lazy day today. Okay, the day wasn't lazy, I was. Chloe and I took a leisurely stroll through the park and then spent an hour or so at the lake. I discovered, a few days ago, that the cormorants didn't all leave. There are about twenty, mostly youths, still living on the lake and acting up, just like teenagers will do. I'd planned to sketch them but that lazy thing was going on and it seemed like way too much work, so I drew what was close by and easy, which happened to be a couple of ground squirrels. The first one watched me draw him. We took turns staring at one another until ... poof ... he was gone. The other was heard before she was seen. She was screeching loudly and I looked around until I saw her standing near the edge of the water. Whatever had her in such a huff wasn't apparent to me. She hollered for a bit and then turned around and disappeared.

These ground squirrels are much different than those I see in the less populated (by humans) parts of the park. Those squirrels run and hide when they see me, or they freeze up and then run and hide when I turn away for a moment. Near the lake, the ground squirrels are very tame and tolerant of people sitting on a bench and sketching them. Good subjects for a lazy sketching session!

Crayons and a hummingbird

2010-04-10T18:21:00.000-07:00

I've been trying... and trying... and trying to get the hang of sketching with watercolor but it's caused nothing but heartache so far. I'm taking a break right now and playing with other media in the field. Today, with time to play at Howarth Park, I took along a set of Lyra aquacolor crayons I bought a few years ago. After a pleasant walk on a beautiful spring day, I stopped in a meadow that many different birds frequent and sat as inconspicuously as I could under a manzanita, waiting to see who or what would come by. I'd forgotten that the tree I was near was a favorite perch for this male Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna) and was pleasantly reminded when he arrived and stuck around for the next hour or so. The crayons were great! I was able to get strong color (sometimes a bit too strong!) quickly and with very little effort. I used a fairly dry brush to wet the colors and blend them and had a blast! I'm looking forward to more! I'll get out the watercolor set again in a while. Right now I'm going to keep having some fun with crayons.

Basking

2010-04-09T19:23:00.000-07:00

Chloe and I ended our morning at the little point of land near the parking lot at Howarth Park where families go to feed the ducks. Plump geese, busy blackbirds and cheeky ground squirrels can all be found here most of the day. This seems to be Chloe's favorite part of our walks so I try to spend a little time here after each one. I admit that it's a good place for me, too. Big birds that can be seen easily without binoculars and good light make it a fun place to sketch if the human crowd isn't too big or boisterous. Oh, and on cold days it's sunny and warm.

A week ago we watched a woman feed peanuts to a ground squirrel that begged under her bench on it's hind legs. When the woman became engrossed in the conversation she was having with her companion, the squirrel leaped up on the bench to remind her to keep her priorities straight!

Today it was near lunch time and had gotten crowded by the time we arrived. Several people brought their dogs through to lunge at birds, which, of course, made the birds scatter. The ground squirrels were nowhere to be found, so I was packing up my sketchbook when I happened to notice a turtle basking on a rock beside the little island where the birds can get away from it all. I got the sketchbook back out of my pack and made a quick study of the turtle.

This turtle had no markings on it's face or shell and was probably a northern Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata), one of the three native turtles living in California. There's a different pond turtle south of San Francisco and a desert turtle, too. While trying to identify the turtle I found that tortoises and turtles are disappearing rapidly. For more information visit California Department of Fish and Game and California Herps.

Another mystery solved

2010-04-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

For years I've been hearing a haunting bird call on Lake Ralphine but have never been able to see what bird made the call. A couple of weeks ago I was sketching some geese when two small birds popped out of the water and began to make the call, right before my very eyes and ears, solving one of my most difficult, long-standing cold cases! That day, they were actively feeding which meant they spent most of the time underwater. I did some rapid sketches each time they surfaced, enough to identify them as Pied-billed Grebes (Podilymbus podiceps), but not enough to really get a good look.

Today, as I walked around Lake Ralphine, I was lucky enough to see one floating aimlessly in a shallow area giving me the opportunity to make a few sketches. Pied-billed grebes, besides having a mouthful of a name, are common birds throughout North America and much of South America. They prefer diving to flying and rarely take to the air. I was lucky to work on identifying the grebe during breeding, as the mark on the beak and black throat are part of breeding plumage.

Sun!

2010-04-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

I walked at Howarth Park after an absence of five days. The first thing I noticed was that the Double-crested cormorants are all gone. There were fewer present five days ago but now there are none. I missed hearing and seeing them as I made my way into the park today but they'll be back in a few months and there were other sights to amaze and delight. Oh, and to draw! I've been meaning to sketch some larkspur (Delphinium nudicaule) and wandered along to where they're blooming, got my drawing gear set up and was just about to start sketching when I heard the loud, raucous call of a Pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) ....no, make that two Pileated woodpeckers... very near by. I gathered everything back into the pack and trudged off to see if I could find them. I found a female busily scavenging insects (probably carpenter ants) from a dead branch on an oak. The other woodpecker periodically called as he flitted about the area, but I was able to draw for a good long time as the female climbed under, over, sideways, down on the branch in her quest for food. Big birds are still so much easier for me to sketch and these birds are really big, almost as big as crows.

Next: I'm able to solve a long-standing mystery.

Squirrel strategy

2010-04-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

My last post about my sick day at the feeder isn't about birds at all. For several days two squirrels have been lurking about and clearly trying to figure out a way to get at the two bird feeders hanging in front of our house. We thought we'd placed them well out of the reach of these clever rodents until, one day, I heard a loud crash and looked out to see the platform feeder swinging wildly on it's hook and a squirrel hanging precariously from the edge before jumping off. Every day around noon she returned and kept refining her technique until she was able to jump from roof to feeder, landing on the edge so that the whole platform tipped all of the seed onto the ground. She would then feed contentedly, along with the opportunistic rock pigeons (Columba livia) on the ground. Meanwhile the poor birds the seed was intended for had to all squish onto the tube feeder to eat because there was nothing left on the platform. I entreated my husband to move the platform feeder farther away from the launch site and today the squirrel stared in what I supposed must have been frustration at the tray full of food so close yet so far. Satisfied, I went about my business until I heard some scrabbling and looked to see that she had climbed up a screen cover for one of our garden beds, leaning against the house wall, and was vacuuming seed off of the window sill. I've removed the cover and can only hope that this will be the last of the squirrel raids. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Woodpeckers at the seed feeder?!

2010-04-01T19:55:00.000-07:00

While sniffling my way through a cold I spent a marvelous afternoon sketching the birds (and other creatures) visiting the feeder in our front yard. I've seen a Nuttall's woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii) pecking around the fence at the edge of our yard a few times in the past week or so. He would travel along the top of the fence and stop to peck at the wood, then fly up into the magnolia tree next door and peck around some more then fly off. Today he flew in after lunch and treated me to a punkish display of bright red mohawk. I felt like it was the 1980's all over again! This astonishing display occurred while he was on the tube feeder eating sunflower seeds and a house finch had the temerity to join him. He flew back and forth between the feeder and the magnolia, carrying seeds with him each time. Then he was gone. A few minutes later a female Nuttall's appeared at the feeder and repeated the male's behavior. Each appeared a few more times during the afternoon, but never at the same time. This led me to believe that they must be taking turns incubating eggs, perhaps somewhere nearby.

According to Audubon Nuttall's woodpeckers occur only on the West coast of the United States, mostly in California. They prefer oak woodland and excavate holes in dead limbs or trunks of several different trees to build their nest. Insects make up the majority of their diet but they also eat fruit and nuts and, apparently, seeds.

Next: Squirrel strategy

Birds and sniffles

2010-03-31T17:25:00.000-07:00

I finally caught the cold that's had Greg, my husband, sneezing and sniffling for a week. I had hoped it was going to pass me by but, alas, I have succumbed. I took a quick walk through my neighborhood with Chloe, my dog, and then spent the rest of the day drinking peppermint tea and blowing my nose. Oh, and drawing. Lucky me! It was a great day at the bird feeder! It was warm and sunny just before lunch so I sat on the front porch and sketched one of the California towhees (Pipilo crissalis) that seem to always be around the yard. This one has had an ominous lump on it's head for quite a while. Today, I saw it from the other side for the first time, and found that it's blind on that side. It sat quietly so I was able to spend more time watching and drawing. These birds are about as drab as a bird can be except for that fabulous orange patch under the tail. Although my sketch doesn't show it, there's a bit of orange on the head, too.

Next: Woodpeckers at the seed feeder?!

A slice of bird life

2010-03-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

A storm was on it's way and the feeder gang was more diverse than usual. Maybe they were loading up, just in case? The geese at the top of the page were from Howarth Park earlier in the day. The rest appeared at my feeder between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. The ~~Hairy woodpecker (Picoides villosus)~~...oops! Make that Nuttall's woodpecker (Picoides nuttallii) was in constant motion, cruising along the top of our fence and pausing here and there to peck small holes in the wood. The chestnut chickadee came when everyone else had gone and was a stealth feeder like the oak titmouse. It would furtively fly to the feeder, grab a seed and furtively take off, presumably to eat the seed. In a few moments it would return and do it all over again. The Chickadee was a stealth feeder, landing on the platform feeder, looking about furtively, grabbing a seed and flying off to eat it, then returning to repeat the whole act again.

A quiet moment

2010-03-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

Each evening, before dinner, I spend some time with the birds that visit our feeder. Okay, really what I do is try to be invisible, either in the kitchen at the window or on the front porch. The finches like me better in the house. If I dare to sit outside on the front porch they'll sit in the next-door neighbor's magnolia and chide me for interrupting their evening meal and social hour. The sparrows, towhees and mourning doves are less disturbed by my presence outdoors and will generally mill about as long as I stay quiet and don't make any sudden moves. Sketching birds involves many interruptions and a lot of waiting. The feeder is in our front yard which is about the size of a postage stamp. Every time someone walks by, or a big, noisy truck drives by, or a kid on a skateboard zooms down the street, all of the birds scatter and I'm left waiting to see if they'll come back.

A few nights ago, while waiting for the finches to return I noticed a young white-crowned sparrow perched on one of the obsolete rungs on our telephone pole. The sun was already low enough that there were no shadows and the light was a bit orange. The sparrow stayed for what seemed like forever so I drew a couple of close-ups using my binoculars. Then, when the bird had gone and the finches still hadn't returned, I sketched out the scene.

Hiding in plain sight

2010-03-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

I've noticed a Black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) hiding out in various spots around Lake Ralphine at Howarth Park and was looking for it today. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found three tucked into the cozy little cove at the end of the lake! In the middle of the day, no less!

I'm not sure if this is a family. My notes state that both of the adults had yellow feet which indicates that they're not pair-bonded. According to oiseaux-birds.com this heron's feet turn pinkish when they've mated. On the other hand, both adults had long white plume feathers coming out of their napes which is a part of breeding plumage. Perhaps, as the season progresses, I'll be able to learn more about the relationship between the three birds.

Black-crowned night herons nest in colonies, often with other birds. In Santa Rosa, CA, where I live, there's a rookery on the other side of town with Black-crowned night herons, Great egrets, Cattle egrets and snowy egrets.

Black-crowned night herons are quite common everywhere but the tips of the earth and the area around Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea.

Drifting

2010-03-22T14:24:00.000-07:00

It was unseasonably warm a few days ago as I walked around Lake Ralphine at Howarth Park. At the far end of the park where it's shallow and a bit secluded, I saw what I thought was a protruding rock poking up above the puffs of algae. A bit of movement made me realize that it was a turtle, drifting on the nearly non-existent current and basking in the sun. It may be a Painted Turtle but I wasn't able to see any more than some stripes on it's chin, so I'm not sure.

The sound of spring

2010-03-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I love about sketching is that it makes me look so hard and long at ordinary things that they cease to be ordinary. And, because people who don't live in North America see my work online, I've also been made to remember that what's ordinary to me is extraordinary to someone on another continent!
Take, for example, Canada geese (Branta canadensis). Long before I started learning the names of birds I encountered, I was familiar with these large migratory birds. I grew up in cities on the Great Lakes. As the geese headed back north to breed, their wild honking, as they flew over our house on cold gray days, was the sound of spring arriving. Toward the end of every winter, a part of me listened for the geese and when I heard them, no matter what time it was, I ran outside or opened the nearest window to watch them fly by.
I live in northern California now and winter isn't as hard or long here as it was back east. Canadas still fly over in the autumn and the spring, although not in anything like the numbers that fly over the Great Lakes, and I've seen some spectacular group landings on Lake Ralphine at Howarth Park, as the wild birds stop to visit during their migration. As in other areas on the continent, many Canada geese have chosen not to migrate. Plentiful food and a lack of natural predators has made it easier to stay than to go.

There's a group that lives year round at Howarth Park. Along with a good supply of the grasses and aquatic plants that they naturally feed on, these geese eat bread and other goodies brought by park visitors. As a result, they're very tame and that makes them excellent models for sketching. Unlike their wild relatives, they'll mostly ignore my dog and I when we plunk ourselves down on a rock near the shore, as long as we keep some distance between us and them. These birds were so close that I didn't have to use my binoculars to draw them or to appreciate their beauty and grace.

Cormorants at Lake Ralphine

2010-03-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

Howarth Park is home to a small colony of double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus). They can be found fishing in Lake Ralphine and roosting in a couple of trees near the parking area.

I found a small rise across from one of the trees and watched and sketched cormorants while Chloe paid close attention to a California ground squirrel den nearby.

A young bird, recognizable by the lighter feathers on it’s breast and shoulders and all yellow beak, sat quite still on an upper branch with it’s neck vibrating soundlessly. Every now and then it would open it’s beak and continue to vibrate then close it back up while still vibrating.

After about an hour sketching birds sitting in the tree I was about ready to leave and had started packing up my gear when I heard a strange guttural sound. I looked up to see that a new cormorant, with white crests, had
landed on a branch next to one of the birds I’d been sketching, a bird with black crests. Black crest was making the strange sound and striking some rather suggestive poses, then the two birds began to dance about very clumsily on the rather flimsy branch. White crest moved closer and black crest sang louder. Much neck rubbing and head bobbing ensued and white crest flew off, only to return a few minutes later and they both danced a bit more until white crest again flew off. Not long after I saw white crest swimming on the lake in the company of several black-crested cormorants.

On land cormorants are awkward and slow-moving but underwater they are apparently fast and graceful. Unlike other water birds their feathers aren’t waterproof. As a consequence, once the bird is out of the water, you’ll often see them perched in trees with their wings spread wide to dry out.

Before DDT was banned in 1972, and PCB’s in 1976, the numbers of double-crested cormorants were profoundly diminished. Today, they’re so numerous and easily found that they’re considered a pest by many humans, especially those who fish.

Visit these sites for more information about double-crested cormorants:
Great Lakes Fact Sheet: The Rise of the Double-crested Cormorant on the Great Lakes: Winning the War Against Contaminants.
The Cormorant: The Devil Undisguised?; Dr. Tom Kazo, Ph.D. and Donna McVicar Cannon Kazo
Double-crested Cormorant;Wikipedia
Double-crested Cormorant;USGS

The end of a bad day

2010-03-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

It was a bad day and I was in a bad mood. The day was drawing to a close and I thought a trip to Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery might help me snap out of it. I hoped I might be able to draw something, anything, and transport myself into that lovely place I go to when I draw and am able to let go of everything else. At the end of an hour that passed all too quickly my mood had lightened and the day didn't seem quite as bad. Sometimes I forget what an amazing gift it is to be able to pick up a ballpoint pen and some paper and travel...outside of myself. It was good to be reminded.

Spring fungi

2010-03-11T18:22:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've noticed a new crop of earth tongues fruiting in the woods at Howarth Park. They're quite a bit larger than those I saw in February and their caps are magnificently distorted. They seem to be very happy Trichoglossum hirsutum. Their velvety stems are covered with fine hairs that you can only see under magnification---well, maybe you could see them without, but I can't. They're deep, deep black in color and I get a thrill every time I see one. Or two. They're usually the last of the fungi before spring arrives in earnest. I'm going to miss seeing mushrooms and earth tongues, but wildflowers are blooming and trees are leafing out. Ground squirrels are sitting on rocks with their faces pointed at the sun. I've heard and seen several hummingbirds swoop straight out of the sky with a sharp popping sound, while wooing their potential mates. The grass is tall and growing taller each day. There are so many ticks waiting in that tall grass that Chloe and I are sticking more to the trails. It's really spring! I find myself happy to wear fewer layers of clothing when I go out walking. Today my fingers were warm while I drew and the sun beat down warm enough to keep Chloe comfortable, for a change, while I drew the last fungi of the season. I think I could get used to this, at least for a while.