Tufted Titmouse sitting pretty...

Sunday afternoon the snow was fresh along the Little Miami River and covered the hillsides and paths along the way. Winter birds were all around, their calls softly filtering through the branches, muffled as they carried across the snow. At one point, I looked up and saw this lone Tufted Titmouse perched on the end of a small branch. He was tucked in among lacy shadows, catching a sun ray every now and then...perfectly mirroring the beauty and stillness of winter.

A Tufted Titmouse along the Little Miami River shows a touch of winter's magic.

Painting 100! American Tree Sparrow with Cubes :-D

Painting #100, American Tree Sparrow with Cubes

Acrylic, 18x24 canvas

Yeah!!

The canvas was big...and the lighting poor, so the photo doesn't capture the painting very well. I need to learn how to photograph large canvases because after working on this one, I know I'm going to want to keep getting larger with my art! To help see the bird, I cropped the photo for detail..

Same painting...just cropped for detail.

I love American Tree Sparrows. They are the sweetest little sparrows, always polite and cheerful, and their song...I LOVE hearing it across the snow. It's so pretty...like tiny little bells when the flock moves together. When I was trying to decide what to paint for the final painting in the challenge, it wasn't hard. I was looking through photos from the end of November and saw a photo of an American Tree Sparrow I saw at VOA Park. A twig was right in front of his face, so it never made it on the blog...but...I could paint the little fellow so we could see all of his face. I wanted to capture that sweetness that always seems to surround these little birds. Hopefully you can feel that when you look at him in the painting.

The photo of the American Tree Sparrow that was the inspiration for the painting. I saw this little guy on Nov 21, 2010 at VOA Park. Our little backyard flock still hasn't arrived at our feeders. I keep waiting. Sometimes they don't show until the middle of January, though. They seem to ride in on really cold arctic blasts...

For my favorite photos of an American Tree Sparrow in our backyard, click here.

For one of my earliest posts and info on American Tree Sparrows, click here.

Happy New Year!!!

I also wanted to thank everyone who visits my blog. I always love reading the comments you leave, and I appreciate the friendships that have followed. It's so wonderful to be part of an international birding and art community!! I hope everyone has a peaceful New Year full of love and birding and art adventures!

I also want to thank Laure Ferlita of Painted Thoughts Blog for hosting the 100 Paintings in a Year Challenge. It has been a wonderful experience! Thanks, Laure!!!

Merry Christmas!

Painting 98. The stockings were hung on the branches with care in the hopes that Chiggy Nicholas soon would be there!

Celebrating Winter Solstice at Krohn Conservatory

We've been celebrating Winter Solstice with my parents for a long time, usually with a relaxed dinner at my house that is quite and unhurried...and always lovely. It is a night to step back from the hustle and bustle and marvel at the pine boughs and the green tree sparkling with lights, but this year we decided to celebrate the day too. In Cincinnati, one of the most festive and beautiful places to go during the Christmas season is the Krohn Conservatory in Eden Park. The "flower house" was completed in 1933 and has over 3,500 plants from around the world, all growing lush and green under the massive glass panes.

Matty and my parents, Jerry and Joni, stand outside the Krohn Conservatory. Tucked into Eden Park on a hillside that overlooks downtown Cincinnati, the Krohn Conservatory is a tiny gem that brightens many a grey winter's day in our town.

Christmas magic sparkles everywhere in our town, but it's especially manifest at the Krohn Conservatory. Where else can you find a towering poinsettia tree growing in natural splendor in the dead of winter?

Poinsettias of every color and style blanket the ground, looking especially festive under orange, kumquat, lemon and grapefruit citrus trees.

Matty in the desert room. When you're in the Krohn Conservatory you spend a lot of time looking up...and down...and around...there are so many unique plants and flowers to see.

Dad with his camera...gotcha!

Inside the glass and aluminum structure, cacti, succulents and other desert plants grow in warmth, while outside, snow falls. An empty picnic table at the base of a massive oak tree is beautiful surrounded by the stillness of a Winter Solstice snow...

Don't be fooled. They are smiling because visions of a Winter Solstice lunch at Maggiano's are going through their heads...

Mom wipes condensation from the glass to look out at a sparkling winter scene.

The conservatory looms behind a beautiful Nativity that has been a part of Cincinnati Christmases since 1939. Originally located in Lytle Park on Fourth Street in downtown Cincinnati, it was moved to the Krohn Conservatory in 1967.

More to come on the beauty of a Winter Solstice in Cincinnati...

Not beloved by many...but a female Cowbird in the snow is not without her charms!

A female Cowbird in the snow looks pretty as she sits on her rusty iron perch.

...tough little birds of winter, continued!

...continued from Sunday's Chickadee post.
Deeper in the woods, a male Northern Cardinal puffed his feathers up to gargantuan excess, forming a warm barrier between him and the freezing air around him and allowing him to keep his internal body temperature at a snuggly warm 105 to 108 degrees F.

...the bright, fiery red of a male Northern Cardinal against drifting, spinning, soft-white snowflakes.

Tucked away in a dense tangle of branches, I didn't think I had a chance of capturing his startling shock of color or the overall peacefulness of the bird resting in the cold, but the small branches blocking the view blurred to softness as I focused past them and on him, framing him in what looks like a wintery fog.

...with that tiny sound of snowflakes falling all around, Red looks on, not knowing his beauty is the focus of my lens.

Snow, sledding and the tough little birds of winter...

Friday afternoon, with snowflakes falling and spirits soaring, Matty, Ashley (our fun neighbor), and I headed over to Pine Hill Lakes Park in Mason for sledding and snowboarding. The snow was fluffy and our "secret" slope was empty...hooray!

Matty tearing down the hillside on the snowboard.

I stuck to the sled (I already had one reconstructed ankle, I didn't need another!).

Ashley with her snowboard and Patrick, the snowball. Patrick met an untimely death. It wasn't pretty...

Matty demoing the latest in hockey attire--the fake fur tundra hat!

Deep brush and woods bordered the sled run, and a small flock of Carolina Chickadees flew in to forage among the dormant honeysuckle. It was really cold. The little birds flitted from branch to branch like it was a summer's day, seemingly without a care, but I knew better and marveled at their ability to stay warm. To live through freezing weather, chickadees have to become eating machines, gaining enough fat during the day to fuel them through the long night. What's enough fat? At least 10 percent of their body weight!

...eating...

...eating...

...eating...

...a tough little winter chickadee is a metabolic fireball...

...and he's darn cute too!

I miss our little rubies and emeralds...

I've really enjoyed the January and February snows. So many beautiful birds visit my feeders during the snowstorms, and Red looks exceptionally pretty against the white, so I haven't started in with that I-can't-wait-for-the-sun-to-take-over thing yet, but this evening, I made the mistake of looking at some pics of summer...warm, lovely summer filled with summer birds and summer flowers, and I started to get...antsy. Not good. It's way too early to start thinking about open windows, warm breezes, and cherry tomatoes plucked right off the vine for lunch.

...but we can start thinking about our little rubies and emeralds, because they are starting to think about us and their Big Fly north:

Photos Rick took of one of our female 

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds

From the Hummingbird Journey North Web site:

Beginning February 5th, weekly spring migration updates will be posted here every Thursday, from February to June. Get ready to track the migration! Hummingbirds will move north to nest and travel across the continent. Find out how to report your sightings and track the migration on real-time maps.

This is a really fun site. If you haven't tried it out yet, give it a look.