My sketchbooks are as much a journal of my birding experiences as they are collections of studies. Flipping through some old drawings last night, I was reminded that the Elora heronry should be seeing some activity by now. After a steady diet of feeder birds and waterfowl during the long winter months, the angular, serpentine forms of herons would be a welcome change.
Herons have superb stereoscopic vision, which gives them a rather goggle-eyed look when viewed head on. Treetops are also very much not their element, and although they try very hard to appear elegant and composed (with their long plumes and deliberate movements), they can’t quite shed that appearance of comic ungainlyness.
There were ten nests but only four adults visible when I arrived this morning. Only one of the birds appeared to be brooding. The others stood guard but did not appear particularly alert: two preened, and one was snoozing. The arrival of a fifth heron prompted a bit of half-hearted bill clacking, but things quickly settled down again. Near the end of my visit, the familiar keer of a Red-tailed Hawk drew my attention to a dark shape settled in the bush. The hawk continued to call, and eventually moved to a tree much nearer to the nesting birds. This roused the herons, who watched the raptor attentively and raised their crests. Eventually the intruder moved off, circling just above the trees, but after returning a few minutes later to repeat the performance I wondered if perhaps the red-tails were nesting nearby as well. I’ll have to keep an eye out on my next visit.
Regardless of what the calendar says, and never mind on which day the vernal equinox lies — as far as I’m concerned, the first day of spring is the day the first Red-winged Blackbird arrives to stake his claim over the marshes and fields that I like to wander. Midway through the second week of March they’ll appear, often long before winter loosens its grip: soldierbirds screaming a battle cry of ogalee-geee! from dry cattails and bare branches.
And with the blackbirds leading the invasion, other birds start to appear. Within days I’ll see my first Song Sparrow of the season, my first Common Grackle, my first Brown-headed Cowbird. The influx of migrants and welcome return of birdsong will soon overshadow the red-wings, but none are quite the sight for sore eyes.
The thrill of spotting a wild animal is stirred by the knowledge of what a privilege it is to encounter such a shy creature. Unless, of course, you’re within city limits. Here the rules change, as there is such a density of human beings that many of the wild animals that choose to find their niche among us are largely inured to our presence. The thrill of the hunt may be absent from the encounter, but nonetheless it can be an excellent opportunity to view a normally timid animal up close.
With the weather warming, I’ve been taking walks in the nearby park on my lunch hours. Victoria Park hosts a number of Canada Geese, even more Mallards, and a trio of very obliging Wood Ducks. The male of the group is likely the same bird who hung out there all last summer, and he is currently decked out in his spectacular spring finery (a plumage rivalled only by his close relative the Mandarin Duck). With his helmeted appearance and cloak of dark feathers, he reminds me of a very squat Darth Vader.
You don't know the power of the dark side.
But it’s the female that I find the most beautiful. With warm browns and greys, bright eyes and soft patterns against a vibrant blue speculum, she is without compare my favourite duck. Of the two at Victoria Park, one is much more skittish and usually takes to the water at my approach, but the other holds her ground, and she feistily chases off any of the much larger Mallards if they wander too close.
Wood Ducks are so named because they nest in tree hollows, but they are not the only ducks to do this. Several mergansers, as well as all goldeneye species, are also cavity nesters; nonetheless, it still feels bizarre whenever I see a duck perched in a tree. Soon these two females will be seeking out nest sites of their own, if they haven’t already (suitable cavities are hard to come by, but they will gladly accept nest boxes put out for them if mounted in desirable habitat). Perhaps there will be a few little pale-lored ducklings gracing the ponds alongside the Mallard broods come May or June of this year.
What? March? Really?! Time I finished up with this.
I used Payne’s grey almost exclusively while building up the first three quarters of the painting. As a result, I had to fight with it a bit to warm up the lunar palette, and it remains a very cold piece. Sometimes you go too far. But painting never ceases to be a learning process.
I probably would have put this aside long ago, but every time I thought I was finished I decided the shadows just weren’t dark enough and started another coat. A bit more burnt umber, this time? It’s difficult to judge the contrast of a piece in the dark of winter evenings under artificial light. I had a lot of fun with the flaking cherry bark, carving it up into irregular scales. Like a collection of unmatched puzzle pieces forced to fit together.
I spent my Sunday afternoon vegging out and watching TED talks videos. For those of you not familiar with it, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference of ideas, and has featured the likes of Stephen Pinker, Brian Greene, Al Gore, Stephen Hawking and many other fascinating thinkers and doers. Participants are invited to give an 18 minute talk on an idea that they feel needs to be shared, and videos of these talks are available to freely view and distribute from the TED website.
Here’s one of my favourites, from the 2008 conference: Joshua Klein on the impressive intelligence of the common crow, and the inventive way in which he put that intelligence to good use for the benefit of both human and bird.
