He can wipe away the grey!

Walking the woods along the Little Miami river today was less than inspirational (at first). It was so grey, it felt like the color could swallow you whole. Thank goodness this little guy came along peeping his happy song. His shade of grey is always welcome!!

A Tufted Titmouse's peeping song cuts through the grey woods with cheer!

I like grey when it has feathers...

...keep on peeping Beaolophus bicolor!

p.s. Bird profile shots are always great references for artists. Feel free to use these photographs to help you sketch, draw, or paint a cute tufted titmouse! 

Cooper's Hawk in the snow...

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me,

he complains of my gab and my loitering.

Walt Whitman

Song of Myself, LII

I’ve always liked this line from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself (click here for an online version of the poem). It makes me laugh. I definitely have been scolded by hawks for loitering...

I don't think a Cooper's Hawk was the "spotted hawk" Whitman wrote about in his poem, but this Cooper's Hawk sure seems to be accusing me of something and complaining about it too!

...and he has every right. Our hawks have lost their perfect backyard perch—the dead limb on the half-dead weeping willow tree that extended out into the yard for prime viewing. "Where's my limb?" he complains. "What have you done with it?" he accuses. For years the hawks always perched on that limb—the hawk branch. It was so hawky it even had its own name. Cooper's Hawks, Red-shouldered Hawks, Sharp-shinned Hawks, and once or twice, even a Red-tailed Hawk, have claimed it, watching the comings and going of everything in our yard, including us. From the perch, the hawks could see directly into our kitchen. We miss the limb as much as the hawks do. It was always a treat to walk into the kitchen and find a hawk sighting us. The hawks are making do with the other branches in the willow, the ash, and the mulberry trees, but it's just not the same...

...the snow was pretty, but it didn't last long!

Leave a peppermint stick for old St. Nick...

Wishing everyone a very Chiggy Christmas

filled with love, peace and joy.

The Carol of the Birds

(a traditional Catalonian Carol)

When rose the eastern star, the birds came from a-far,
in that full night of glory.
With one melodious voice they sweetly did rejoice
and sang the wonderous story,
sang, praising God on high, enthroned above the sky,
and his fair mother Mary.

The eagle left his lair, came winging through the air,
his message loud arising.
And to his joyous cry the sparrow made reply,
his answer sweetly voicing.
"Overcome are death and strife, this night is born new life",
the robin sang rejoicing.
When rose the eastern star, the birds came from a-far.

(addendum...I forgot to mention this was painting 100 in the 100 Painting Challenge! I've completed two years of the challenge and now have 200 paintings to show for it. Time to start year three...no rest for the wicked!)

A Great Egret on its nest...

A Great Egret stands atop what appears to be a scattered lump of twigs. Of course, it's nothing of the kind. It's a platform nest, and although it may look flimsy and non-enduring, the weight of the twigs added over time locks everything together and makes the nest secure:

"The simplicity of the architectural blueprint for the piled-up platform nest is deceptive, as it creates some of the most monumental and enduring structures in the avian world. Birds of prey including eagles, kites, and ospreys build platforms, as do herons, egrets, storks, and spoonbills." (Source: "Avian Architecture; How Birds Design, Engineer, and Build," by Peter Goodfellow, pg 36.)

A Great Egret on its nest at the Ibis Pond rookery on Pinckney Island (from June of this year).

...giving the nest the once over? Our egret appears to be studying something!

I saw more Great Egret nests on Pinckney Island this summer than past years. The Great Egret nests were much further away from the the moat and harder to see than the Tricolored Herons, Little Blue Herons, and Snowy Egrets, but this one, although pretty far away, was easily seen.

...a Great Egret takes flight through the reeds at the water's edge.

Egrets

by Mary Oliver

Where the path closed
down and over,
through the scumbled leaves,
fallen branches,
through the knotted catbrier,
I kept going. Finally
I could not
save my arms
from thorns; soon
the mosquitoes
smelled me, hot
and wounded, and came
wheeling and whining.
And that's how I came
to the edge of the pond:
black and empty
except for a spindle
of bleached reeds
at the far shore
which, as I looked,
wrinkled suddenly
into three egrets - - -
a shower
of white fire!
Even half-asleep they had
such faith in the world
that had made them - - -
tilting through the water,
unruffled, sure,
by the laws
of their faith not logic,
they opened their wings
softly and stepped
over every dark thing.

I've always loved this poem by Mary Oliver. It's in one of my favorite bird anthology books, "The Little Big Book of Birds," edited by Lena Tabori and Natasha Tabori Fried, pg. 258. I tried twice to format this poem as it appears in my book, but both times, Blogger stripped out the formatting when I posted. I tried...

"Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink..."

Do you remember that line from the poem "Robert of Lincoln," by William Cullen Bryant? I learned it when I was in the fourth grade, and it always stuck with me. When I saw these shots of the Bobolinks from the "rejected June" photos, that line kept running through my head...

"...Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,

Spink, spank, spink..."

A male Bobolink in the High Meadow at Voice of America (VOA) Park

Since I was going back to my childhood with this post, I pulled out my first field guide—"Teach-Me about Birds, Flash Cards in full color" to see how they described the Bobolink's unique and beautiful song. Their description is spot on: "A bubbling series of musical notes given in flight or from a perch." It's simple and perfect...."a bubbling series of musical notes..."

A female Bobolink is pretty. Just like a cardinal, she has that "understated elegance."

I like this photo because it clearly shows his pointy tail feathers!

...you can see those pointy tail feathers just a bit here, but this shot really emphasizes his strong feet and legs. For his size, they really are beefy!

"When you can pipe that merry old strain,

Robert of Lincoln, come back again."

I wanted to find the poem, so I looked it up and found a free eBook that has it. Click here for the online version of the book "Poems That Every Child Should Know—A Selection of the Best Poems of all Time for Young People," edited by Mary E. Burt (1906)

Robert of Lincoln
by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Merrily swinging on brier and weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or mead,
Robert of Lincoln is telling his name:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Snug and safe is that nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers,
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest,
Wearing a bright black wedding-coat;
White are his shoulders and white his crest
Hear him call in his merry note:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Look, what a nice coat is mine.
Sure there was never a bird so fine.
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,
Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
Passing at home a patient life,
Broods in the grass while her husband sings,
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Brood, kind creature; you need not fear
Thieves and robbers while I am here.
Chee, chee, chee.

Modest and shy as a nun is she;
One weak chirp is her only note.
Braggart and prince of braggarts is he,
Pouring boasts from his little throat:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Never was I afraid of man;
Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can!
Chee, chee, chee.

Six white eggs on a bed of hay,
Flecked with purple, a pretty sight!
There as the mother sits all day,
Robert is singing with all his might:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Nice good wife, that never goes out,
Keeping house while I frolic about.
Chee, chee, chee.

Soon as the little ones chip the shell,
Six wide mouths are open for food;
Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well,
Gathering seeds for the hungry brood.
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
This new life is likely to be
Hard for a gay young fellow like me.
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln at length is made
Sober with work, and silent with care;
Off is his holiday garment laid,
Half forgotten that merry air:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Nobody knows but my mate and I
Where our nest and out nestlings lie.
Chee, chee, chee.

Summer wanes; the children are grown;
Fun and frolic no more he knows;
Robert of Lincoln's a humdrum crone;
Off he flies, and we sing as he goes:
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
When you can pipe that merry old strain,
Robert of Lincoln, come back again.
Chee, chee, chee.

My hummingbirds are not always angelic...

...sometimes they perch with an undeniably honked-off and irritable look in their eyes defying any other humming-type bird to venture forth and try...just try...to get a sip of the sweet, sweet nectar...

Painting 172. Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird Guarding the Nectar

Watercolor

Rough Pencil sketch from my sketchbook of a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird

...I drew this sketch in the car while waiting for Matty. My ref was a poor-quality printout of a photo I took a couple of years ago. As a result, I couldn't see any feather detail, so I totally made up the feather configuration, choosing "poetic license" to give the feel of detail. Since this little female had such a fierce look in her eyes...and she was "poetic" in her own way, I thought D. H. Lawrence's poem "Humming-bird," where he depicts a hummingbird at the dawn of creation as a "jabbing, terrifying monster," was the perfect fit. When I watch our hummingbirds fight viciously over their food source in the summer, I totally get his image...

Humming-bird

I can imagine, in some otherworld
Primeval-dumb, far back
In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed,
Humming-birds raced down the avenues.

Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of Matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.

I believe there were no flowers, then,
In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation.
I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak.

Probably he was big
As mosses, and little lizards, they say, were once big.
Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.
We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time,
Luckily for us.

by D. H. Lawrence

(excerpted from "The Little Big Book of Birds," by Tabori and Fried -- originally from "Birds, Beasts and Flowers," 1923)

...this is painting 72 in this year's 100 painting challenge...painting 172 in my 5 year, 500 painting challenge.

...a quick sketch of a watery spring wren

Painting 146. Spring Wren Dripping Waterdrops

(Watercolor, 9x10 Arches Cold Pressed 140 lb paper)

Spritely behind leaves...

Spring wren dripping waterdrops

...has a job to do.

"The Little Beach Sanderling"

BY the beach border, where the breeze
Comes freighted from the briny seas,
By sandy bar and weedy rock,
I frequent meet thy roving flock;
Now hovering o'er the bending sedge,
Now gather'd at the ocean edge;
Probing the sands for shrimps and shells,
Or worms marine in hidden cells,
A restless and inconstant band,
Forever flitting o'er the sand.
--Isaac McClellan ("The Little Beach Sanderling")

"A ROUTE of evanescence"

A ROUTE of evanescence

With a revolving wheel;

A resonance of emerald,

A rush of cochineal;

And every blossom on the bush

Adjusts its tumbled head,—

The mail from Tunis, probably,

An easy morning's ride.

Emily Dickinson

from "The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson"

"Evanescence" is such a beautiful word and perfectly describes our little Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. Emily Dickinson's sensitivity to nature forever gave us this connection--a perfect match in sound and mood. Fleeting, they do seem to appear out of nowhere and vanish as a vapor when they wish.

...continued from Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Lucifer Crocosmia