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This is another ‘catch up’ post about the Allegany Nature Pilgrimage at the end of May. This post I put up pictures of birding hikes and the bird banding demonstration along with a video clip of the demo.
This was the very first nature hike I went on the whole weekend, it was led by birding expert Frank Gardner. We wound our way through some beautiful woods by a stream, to me it looked like a ‘Faerie Haven’. It was considered an advanced bird walk because most of the identification was by bird song. We kept hearing a Blackburnian Warbler up in the trees…ok, this is one of those birds that I’m dying to see. If you remember I did a little painting of one in my sketchbook this winter, click here to see it. Well, I had to leave the hike a little early to catch another hike that was starting soon, guess what everyone in the entire group saw after I left? A Blackburnian Warbler came down to take a bath in the creek!! Oh boy…they teased me a bit because I made such a big deal out of wanting to see one!
This is the ‘All Day Birding Hike’ I took with Tim Baird as the leader. I was worried that we’d be hiking all day long and I wouldn’t be able to do it, but it was actually very pleasant as we took several cars and drove to different locations in the park, then walked. This is a page from my sketchbook, click it too see all my notes on the different birds I saw or heard. I put a little dot in front of birds I heard, and a check mark for ones I saw too. I did a tiny sketch with water-soluble graphite of the lake and hills from where we stood by the lodge, Allegany Park’s main office. The water-soluble pencils are by Derwendt and I just love them. You can do a simple sketch when you’re in a hurry and just worry about the values, use a water-brush to wet it while you’re standing there. In a later post I’ll put up the sketch pages with complete lists of every bird and flower that I’ve seen here and in the Adirondack Mnts. Believe me it’s long!!
This is at the bird banding demonstration on Sunday morning. If you’ve never seen a banding demo please make sure you try to some day, I had no idea it’d be so fascinating! The above picture shows Jerry blowing on the breast of a yellow warbler to expose the breast. It’s a way they check for a brood patch or check the general weight of the bird for health.
To catch the birds they raise fine nets up in the early morning and leave them up, the birds fly into them and get tangled but not harmed.This is a hummingbird in the hand, amazing!
Here’s a Chestnut Sided Warbler that Jerry is holding, it’s amazing how they hold the bird by the upper legs, above the joint I think, and it doesn’t hurt it. I’ve included a video clip, you’ll see how casual they are about holding the birds, and get a good look at Bob McKinney holding a Yellow-Billed Cuckoo. Jerry is holding a Catbird, though he seems extremely casual about holding it, believe me they’ve done this thousands of times and no birds are injured. A funny trick Bob would do with the kids, when he was ready to release a bird, he’d carefully lay it on it’s backside on top of someone’s head. Then the bird would get it’s bearings and fly off…it was really neat! You’ll see Bob measuring the bird, blowing on it’s breast to look for a brood patch and then he unceremoniously plops it into a tumbler to put it on the scale for weighing. With smaller birds he used an empty pill bottle! Up above on my double sketch page you can see a tiny sketch I did of the Cuckoo in the tumbler. Enjoy the video!!
Well where to begin? This is a very late entry about my weekend at the Allegany Nature Pilgrimage, May 30, 31, June 1, 2008. I wanted to make sure I share it with you because it was such a fantastically wonderful weekend filled with great people and plenty of new things to learn about nature. I’ve decided to break it up into several posts so it’s not too long. This one will be about the wildflowers I saw. Below is just one of the fabulous views in Allegany State Park.
I feel giulty for not having more drawings, but let me explain what it was like. From Friday until Sunday you could show up for hikes or classes lead by experts in their field, all day long! There was one after the other, some at the same time, it was so hard to pick and choose which I wanted to go on. I filled 13 pages in my sketchbook with notes about birds, flowers and plants! We were constantly walking as a group so it was very hard to draw, the small amount of sketching I did was while I was walking! Seriously…you have to watch the ground so you don’t trip! haha… This page of my sketchbook shows a drawing I did while on a guided birdwatching hike. It was lead by Tim Baird of Salamanca, he’s a retired science teacher who knows more about birds and plants than anyone I know! He has such a wonderful casual manner when you ask questions about everything you see….well um…that was me! I asked him about everything I saw! He was so patient!! haha…must be the teacher in him. Most of the flowers, plants and birds I learned about this weekend were from his walks. Thanks Tim!!
I learned about this flower on a wildflower hike led by Mary Alice Tock, down by the lakeside. It’s Cinquefoil, cinque (5) as in five leaves, five petals slightly heart shaped. Mary told us some things to look for when identifying wildflowers: 1. color 2. shape of leaves 3. # of petals 4. arrangement of leaves on stem, and how they’re connected to the stem.
This is Clintonia, a woodland lily, also called Yellow Corn-lily or Blue Bead for the fruits it bears. I took this picture up at Thunderocks on my last day…more about that amazing place in another post!
This is Golden Alexander, shown in the sketch I did above while walking. It has a complicated flower head like Queen Anne’s Lace, I forget the technical term…I’m sure someone can remind me in the comments.
It’s a gorgeous day! 65-70 degrees, sunny and breezy. The first journal page is done with watercolor pencils and a waterbrush…I found it hard to get the greens I wanted. I spotted this little butterfly in the field as we walked and I’ve narrowed it down to two butterflies-either the Pearl Crescent or Gorgone Checkerspot…anyone help me with an ID? This painting was done with watercolors. I used my little watercolor kit that’s tucked into a tiny “Altoids” tin if you can believe it! I’ll have to post a picture of that soon. Some bird photos I took, two of a male Tree Swallow that was sitting by it’s nest box. A picture of a Song Sparrow on the left, and a Swamp Sparrow on the right. This flower was drawn with a micron pen then colored with watercolor. I had to wait till I was at the Allegany Nature Pilgrimage (more on that later!) to indentify it, showing it to some wildflower experts…they told me it’s a Evening Lychnis. This is about the morning I spent at Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve in Cheektowaga, NY. It’s from back in May, but I wanted to put it up to keep my posts in order. The very first thing I saw, well heard, was a House Wren…busy little thing! I kept watching it flit around until it showed me where it’s nesting hole in a dead tree was. (Don’t forget to click on my sketchbook pages to see the enlarged views.) May really is the month to see and hear birds when you’re out walking! Some of the birds I heard or saw: Catbird, Yellow Warbler, House Wren, Canada Geese, Baltimore Oriole, Mallard ducks, Turkey Vulture, Red Winged Black Bird, Nuthatch, Wood Ducks, Great Blue Heron, Belted Kingfisher. I also took a few pictures of the gorgeous wildflowers including the pink ones with the bee on it, those are Honey Suckle, the pale lavender ones are Dames Rocket if I’m not mistaken. You look for the four petals it has, not five. I came upon a Baltimore Oriole that had just had a bath in the shallow area of the pond. He was up in the branches at my eye level, just preening and shaking off. I took some pictures with my tiny camera but he was really too far away; but what in inspiring sight, I can’t wait to do a painting of one. Then down by the wooden bridge on the Lily Pond Loop, I shot a short video clip just to show how gorgeous the day was. It was sunny but cool, the lily pads were out, no flowers yet, and birds flying everywhere. Check it out because I have another video clip taken on July 5th to show you soon…lilie flowers in full bloom! Today I went birdwatching with the Audubon Society at Iroqouis Wildlife Refuge in Gasport, NY. This is north of Buffalo. a very beautiful area to hike around. The weather today wasn’t gorgeous as it rained off and on and was quite cold…but we saw birds. There were a few expert birders leading the informal outing, they were so good at naming birds just by their song. It was mother’s day and gorgeous…I had a chance to go out and just sit in the soft spring grass and draw. So I thought I’d just play with a non permanent ink pen and a waterbrush to do a little demo on how simple it is to make a nice value drawing. The pen is just a typical non permanent writing pen from an office supply store. This post, and the next few from me, are being put up late…but I wanted to keep the hikes I took in sequence….more exciting things coming soon! The final video clip below is a nice bit of music by one of my favorite singers…the Wood Thrush!!
I was at the Farm Center where I go to buy corn for my chickens, hardware type supplies and new mud boots when I need them. Well, they had new baby chicks! What can I say? I have a barn, I have chickens, I love chicks and being the little kid in a big kids body that I am…ahem…I bought them for myself!! It was to cheer myself up because I’m still hurting from my car accident. So the first page was sketches with a graphite mechanical pencil…it’s hard to draw things that are constantly moving! The other page is watercolors that I played with. At the bottom you can see where I wet the paper first and touched it with my color on my brush tip. It makes fuzzy blobs that are fun to play with, but you have to be careful as to “how” blobby it gets. Watercolor has a mind of it’s own, but that’s what I like about it. You can play with this technique, just wet the paper first…let it dry a bit to lose some sheen, then touch paint to it and let it go. It will grow on it’s own. Experiment with this to see how it reacts when your paper is wetter or drier. Then let it dry totally before you try to add details or they will be fuzzy too. Well I’m finally getting some pictures up from my day of exploring at Evangola State Park, in Brandt NY. (it’s near Angola) My photographer friend Mark Baker and I are picking areas around Buffalo to go explore, he concentrates on photography while I grab some pictures and then try to sketch. It is nice to spend time with a friend this way but it is a little harder for me to settle down and draw things. I guess as we explore more together I’ll get more comfortable with just saying, “I’ll be sitting here for awhile while you go shooting”. He got some neat shots of me working and I took the ones of my hand holding the palette in the creek bed and the cool “hanging by a root” photo. It was a very overcast day, windy but pleasant enough. Sometimes that’s a great kind of lighting for photography or drawing, no glaring sun to deal with. I sketched the covered bridge and wanted to work on it more at home, but never got time. That’s why I waited so long to post this!, ah, the best laid plans of mice and women….ahem. Then I sat down on the bank to do a quick watercolor of the lake using my Chinese brush, the colors were really dull because of the type of day it was. But I wanted to experiment and practice painting outdoors. You can see in the picture that Mark took looking over my shoulder that I’ve spread my bag out in front of me, but all within quick reach in case I have to pack up suddenly and go. Um…rain, creepy men …you ladies know what I mean! haha…another good reason to have a male friend on the exploration trip with you. A side note here to my painting, drawing, exploring lady friends, ALWAYS pay attention to what’s going on around you!! Don’t be naive, believe me you don’t want to run into trouble out by yourself, better to be paying attention to who’s around you. Today I’ve uploading my sketchbook pages that I did the other day (4-23-08). It was my first day going outside to draw since my car accident…what a great day to be out there! I got to observe the bluebirds trying to nest in one of the bluebird boxes I put up. A Red Spider Mite came and visited, then crawled all over my paint box. I tried to note the bugs I saw, one I need help identifying, the little brown one with tan spots. Check out the pictures I added, the Red Spider Mite was crawling over my white watercolor block, I photographed it through my magnifying glass! The other picture shows my field bag and it’s contents…also my palette. I kept the little binoculars handing so I could keep checking out the bluebirds. |
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