Wings

" I have made a great mistake. I have wasted my life with mineralogy, 

which has led to nothing. Had I devoted myself to birds, their life and 

plumage, I might have produced something worth doing." 

 —John Ruskin

I was excited to read that this week's Illustration Friday topic is "wings", as I have just finished this drawing of  spotted owl and peregrine falcon feathers. It was a Christmas present for my son; I know, I know, it's January, but he has just returned from three months in New Zealand, so our celebration was postponed a bit.

As I've told you in a previous posts here and here, he's a field biologist currently working with the California Condor group at nearby Pinnacles National Monument. (Pinnacles was recently upgraded to national park status!) Before that, he worked with a spotted owl research project up in the Sierra. With a few months off between stints at Pinnacles, he took a working vacation to New Zealand—backpacking, photographing, and working on a local falcon project.

My son is one of those lucky adults who has a job that grew from a childhood fascination. As a little boy, he would count hawks to pass the time on our summer drives to Lake Tahoe, and requested that his 7th birthday cake be decorated with a peregrine falcon. I was able to unearth this photo (terribly out-of-focus, I'm afraid) to document my culinary creation. Twenty years later, I hope that he'll enjoy this drawing just as much.

Here are a few WIP shots...I always enjoy seeing them in posts; I hope you do, too!

Baby Chickadees...again!

It's been a busy week, and I haven't had much time for drawing—I'm hoping to remedy that tomorrow—but I just had to re-post my little sketch of my chickadee nesting box because...it's brimming with babies again! 

We hadn't see much action all spring, but suddenly there was a flurry of nest-building activity. Then, I found two tiny chickadee eggs, broken on my porch. I thought that perhaps the nest had been destroyed by another bird or something. (The eggs looked exactly like Jelly Belly "Toasted Marshmallow" jellybeans, cream-colored with brown speckles.)

But, about a week ago, we noticed both parents noisily standing guard in the magnolia trees next to the porch, and constantly flying in and out of the box, which made me think: they have babies! And two days ago, the cheeping started, and goes pretty much non-stop in the daylight hours. Just a few minutes ago, the parents started chirping loudly enough to get my attention at my desk just inside the window. Sure enough, Trixie, the neighbor's cat, was paying a visit. Happily, the box is completely unreachable by a cat, but I shooed her home, all the same. (She's the same one that we've twice caught sitting on the eggs in our chicken coop, so heaven only knows what she had in mind.)

My nesting box was originally a gift from my son (see the original post about him and this sketch here.). You can purchase the exact same one from Wild Birds Unlimited if you're interested.

I've gone online and looked at photos of what is probably taking place in there. This blog has some photos that are exceptionally good. It makes me want to install a little camera of some kind for next year!

Nesting box (at top of photo) as seen from my desk

Featured Artist: Grace

My niece, Grace, has always been very creative and artistic. Lately she has been drawing with colored pencils, so I thought that it would be fun to share her wonderful artwork here... in honor of her 10th birthday today!
She is also a devoted reader of my blog,
so if you leave her a comment below,
she'll definitely see it!


Happy Birthday, Grace!

She likes to draw people,

(that's a self-portrait on the left)

and  fruit, 

(like her Aunt Sarah does)

and some amazing animals! 

(She made the frog at clay camp this summer, and drew her cat, Daisy,
just the other night. Isn't that one great? I love the expression on Daisy's face. 

I think Grace has a future as an illustrator of children's books, don't you?)

Happy Birthday, Grace!

Happy Mothers' Day

What perfect timing—the little chickadees that settled into the nesting box under my porch eaves are now proud parents!  (Well, I don't know how proud they are, but I'm proud...)

I can't see the babies yet, but I can definitely hear them, and occasionally, the box starts rocking back and forth from all of the activity inside.  I know that not everyone's a bird nerd like I am, but I found some amazing photographs at www.sialis.org showing what things probably look like in the nesting box.  Check them out here.  There's a steady flow of traffic in and out as the male brings food, and when he isn't making deliveries, he's guarding the nest nearby; he sounds the alarm every time we use the front door. (Here's my original post about this sketch of the chickadees moving into the box. )

Wishing a lovely day to all of the moms out there; I hope that you are being fed and pampered as well as my little houseguests!

More "mother bird" news:  My son (that I mentioned in the original post) has posted his first photos of the spotted owls he's studying this summer. Amazing!

Roots and wings

They say that they best gifts parents can give their children are roots and wings.  Today, I said goodbye to my biologist son as he left for a stint in the field studying spotted owl populations.  We were lucky to have him staying with us for the month of March, after having left his previous research position at UC Davis to prepare for his new adventure.  He just set up this beautiful  blog to document his experience, which features some of his nature photography, if you're interested.

My son is responsible for the interest in birds and chickens around our house.   A while back, he gave me a birdhouse and hung it under the eaves of our front porch, easily visible as I sit at my computer.  A couple of springs ago, I saw a bird going in and out, but there hasn't been any activity lately.  This week, as he was packing and getting ready to go, a chickadee started going in and out, with nesting materials in its mouth.  Today, I noticed that there are actually two chickadees busily preparing a nest in the box.  On a day of goodbyes, made even drearier by the grey, rainy weather, I'm overjoyed to welcome our new  residents.

Illustration Friday: Warning

"TWEET! Recess is over, return to your classroom!"

"TWEET! Get out of the pool!"

"TWEET! Make way for ducklings!"

Maybe it was the fact that I haven't had much time to draw, or maybe it's because I just finished reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick and am still under the spell of those breathtakingly exquisite pencil drawings, but I was in the mood to do a simple sketch this week.  This is the nickel-plated whistle that I carry to school with me when I teach.  It belonged to my mother-in-law, who taught school for forty years.  As I looked at my whistle, I thought of this drawing by another illustrator that did exquisite pencil work, Robert McCloskey.  As a child, I adored Make Way for Ducklings, and Homer Price.  I remember looking at those illustrations, and marveling that they were done with some of my favorite things...pencils and paper.

from Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

from The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick