Support This Site

If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi

Search this Site:

Visit my shop on Zazzle for many products with my art!

“The Invisible Warbler” July 5, 2009

Have you ever gone for a walk on a beautiful day, listening to all the wonderful birds singing around you, and there’s one that seems to be singing right in front of you, but won’t show itself? Sigh. That’s what happened today at the midpoint of my hike, standing quietly listening intently, trying to ‘see’ this mystery bird. So, I think I found a new species, we’ll call it “Invisible Warbler” , perhaps with a Latin name of Invisibulus? Haha, anyone else seen signs of this bird?  Well enjoy reading my pages below and the added photos, I’ll add a few notes here and there to explain.

july-5-09-pg-1-72dpi

july-5-09-pg-2-72dpi

This page from my sketchbook shows a quick watercolor sketch where I was standing. It’s a very wet area filled with these swamp type grasses or sedges and surprisingly I wasn’t bothered by mosquitoes here! As I stood painting, Ginger flushed two Woodcocks at separate times, I guess they like wet areas as they use their long beaks to probe the soil (mud) for worms. My dad said that’s why Woodcocks don’t taste good and I can attest to that!  When he used to hunt we had some for dinner…very strong tasting meat. I remember he said they were also very challenging to hunt as they are a hard target; when I see one explode from the brush I can’t imagine how you could actually shoot one! ( I never would anyways!!)

yellow-throat-2-cr

Yellow Throat (2)

Now here’s one of my favorite warblers, a Yellow Throat. I still remember the first time I saw one down in Pennsylvania at Lake Sheridan.

Yellow Throated Warbler

Yellow Throat

He was so difficult to see in the brush, I’m just happy I got these two pictures though they are blurry! I really need to paint this warbler.

Burr

Burr

Did you know, the guy who invented “Velcro” got the idea from this little plant? Next time you see some prickly headed Burrs, take a closer look at it. You’ll notice the prickles have little hooked ends on them, not so nice when you go hiking and they stick all over your socks!

h-or-d-woodpecker7-cr-re

Hairy Woodpecker ?

I saw him on “Memory Lane”, heard his tapping before I saw him.

Flycatcher

Flycatcher

I’m not very good at identifying Flycatchers, though I got a lot of great photos of this one if anyone wants to help me. Is it just a Phoebe? I found him by my pond.

Eyed Brown

Eyed Brown

I’m so excited about finding TWO new butterflies, for me that is! The first is this “Eyed Brown Butterfly”, a very simple and plain looking creature. Sometimes it’s looking closer at the ‘plain janes’ that you can appreciate their subtle colors and patterns. I like the combination of light brown with the dark brown spots and the rings with dots. If I was teaching children to notice this, it’d be fun to draw these dots and rings. Also notice the repeated lines of the veins on the wings, a nice pattern.

Eyed Brown (2)

Eyed Brown (2)

Rose Breasted Grosbeak (fem. or juvenile)

Rose Breasted Grosbeak (fem. or juvenile)

This was a great capture! I was standing quietly on “Oak Lane” and saw him up on a branch at the edge of the woods adjoining a field. It looks like a gigantic sparrow if you were to compare it to something familiar, but notice the heavy beak. This is either a young Rose Breasted Grosbeak or a female, I’m not sure. I’d guess a young one because it looks so ruffled.

Rufus Sided Towhee (m)

Rufus Sided Towhee (m)

Another favorite of mine, the Rufus Sided Towhee. I still remember the first time I saw one of these too, also at Lake Sheridan in Pa. So many great birding memories from Pennsylvania when I was a teenager! My family is originally from the Scranton area…I spent lots of time at Lake Wallenpaupak too…anyone familiar with these lakes?

Rufus Sided Towhee 2 (m)

Rufus Sided Towhee 2 (m)

Wasp

Wasp

To get this picture, I was a lot farther away then it may seem! I used the zoom on my tiny Olympus camera to capture this one, I just love the pose…looks very elegant actually!

Common Wood Nymph (mating pair)

Common Wood Nymph (mating pair)

This is the second new butterfly discovery of the day for me, the “Wood Nymph”. This is a pair mating, I don’t know if the male of female is the larger one, but one was definitely larger and more pronounced markings. On closer look (in real life) the wings looking rather plain here were actually slightly irridescent and rather pretty.

Common Wood Nymph (mating pair) 2

Common Wood Nymph (mating pair) 2

Well I did not find that invisible warbler, let me know if you ever find one, maybe I can figure out a way to get a picture of him?? haha….

Please leave me your comments and if you may know any of the things I asked about…lets hear your thoughts!

“Hiking at Como Lake Park” 2-13-08

“Come Walk with Me”

On Wednesday, Feb. 13, I asked my friend Sue if she wanted to come exploring Como Lake Park with me. Yes, it was cold but we both have a love of the outdoors and Sue isn’t afraid of a little snow! I even brought my snowshoes hoping to give her a lesson and get in a little snowshoe time myself, but the trail was too uneven with huge slabs of ice from Cayuga Creek. We drove through the whole park to see what was there, it’s pretty much a ‘picnicey’ type of place, not too many trails, but then we are visiting in winter and need to find out more. We explored one trail labeled “Boy Scout Trail” and I have a picture of the sign here. From the time we started out and returned it was only one hour, we didn’t get to do the whole loop, our toes were getting too cold and we started having thoughts of hot cocoa!

There are many views at this park, where I could see I’d like to teach a landscape painting class and my nature sketching classes. The creek is great and reminds me of my walks to the Susquehanna River where I grew up, except that was MUCH larger than this creek!
You can see I’m drawing with my small sketchbook, my bag is slung across my shoulder mailman style so I can get at everything easily. (Sorry the picture is dark). My small camera is attached to the strap, as is my sandpaper block, a compass, and a tiny bottle of pepper spray! Ahhmmm yes ladies, you should be carrying this or something like it when hiking, and try to never hike alone, there are too many weirdos out there, yes I’ve met some!
You can see on my sketchbook page, I started by drawing a square in the center of the page. I stuck a post it note in the back of my sketchbook to use for tracing a perfect square. It’s fun to add some design elements to your pages sometimes. You can then draw whatever you want to highlight in the box, and fill around it with little sketches, notes, tracks etc. I decided to sketch behind it a view of Cayuga creek looking south, you can see this view in the picture of me looking straight across the creek. Remember it’s cold, and even wearing flip back mittens (as my friend in England recommended!) I still had to draw very fast. Especially when hiking with a friend, I feel more pressured to ‘hurry up’.
I found a Hawthorne tree and noted several birds that I heard. At the end of our walk, I heard a loud woodpecker call, we stopped and watched for awhile and then saw a big Pileated Woodpecker fly out through the high branches! It was exciting! Perhaps the large, fresh woodpecker holes I took pictures of, were from this one? Here’s a link for Como Lake Park with how to get there and picnic info etc. http://www.erie.gov/parks/como.asp (if link doesn’t work, I’ve listed it in my links column to the left, under Buffalo nature links.)