Oak Hammock Marsh!

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Finally had a chance to get out of the city over the weekend!  Only had time for a brief trip, so we headed up to Oak Hammock Marsh.  Not a whole lot of birds to see yet, but it's always great to leave town!  Blue skies and warm temps, what could be better...



There was even some open water!  Yay! 

Lone tree and distant, colorful clouds

The sky was so pretty

We only saw Canada Geese there, but returned to town by Blackdale Road, and saw a distant hawk!  Picture kind of sucks, but looks like a Rough-Legged Hawk to me!

What a great day.

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Drawing - Belted Kingfisher

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Belted Kingfisher - Graphite on Paper

Copyright 2011, Nicole MacPherson

Kingfishers are an amazing family of birds!  We only get one of them here, but worldwide, there's a LOT!  You can't mistake a kingfisher, no matter whether it's large or small, short or long-tailed, you can't mistake that BEAK!  Lots of Kingfishers are amazingly bright colored.  Ours, not so much.  But they fascinate me.  Not sure why.  But they sure are cool.

I don't see Kingfishers very often, and haven't managed to get any really good photos of them, even though they can be conspicuous, perching on power lines over flooded ditches (as was my model for the above drawing), or trees near water. 

Still working on getting a good scan of the drawing!  This one is missing the blue haze, but I seem to have lost some detail in the white areas.  Hmmm...

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Drawing - Eared Grebe

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Eared Grebe - Graphite on Paper

Copyright 2011, Nicole MacPherson

I had actually started drawing a White-Throated Sparrow.  But it was a fight.  So I switched to this Eared Grebe.  He glided right out of the page, smooth as can be!  Wish I knew how that happens, so I could do it more often! 

This guy is displaying his crest, I liked the way it looked like a tophat!

Eared Grebes are mind blowing.  Non-birders only see them in the distance, so they're written off as ducks.  But when you start looking with binoculars?  They're so different!  The slender neck, the fluffy tails, the needle-like bill, the yellow facial plumes, and that red eye!  An amazing little bird, pretty common around here, but so rarely appreciated!

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Drawing - Tree Swallow Number Two

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Tree Swallow - Graphite on Paper
Copyright 2011, Nicole MacPherson

Wow, this has been a long time coming!  I actually started a few drawings since finishing the last one, but this is the first one done!

This little guy was stretching and preening, not paying any attention to me at all.  I liked this pose because it reminded me of the moment - that stretching and preening.  It wasn't until I was well into the drawing that I noticed it was actually a pretty funny pose!  What's he saying?  "It's thaddaway!" or maybe shilling for a deodorant commercial - "no white marks"! 

My dear swallow friend, you have nothing but white marks! 

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Awesome Artist

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I have no new drawings to share, but don't want to neglect the blog!

So here's a link to an awesome artist. The lines and colors blog is awesome in its own right too!

Brian Dettmer on the lines and colors blog. Brian uses books to make three dimensional sculptures, page by page. Gorgeous!
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