Category — Birds

Yesterday was my birthday. I took the day off from work to read Discover magazine and paint. It’s funny that I’ve never painted a cardinal before considering how much I like them. This guy is peeking into the picture to say “hi”. This will not be my last cardinal I’m sure.

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Took a visit to New Orleans last week. Spent most of my time in the French Quarter, but also visited the Audubon Park and Audubon Zoo.

My only regret on this trip is that I noticed that there was an “endangered amphibians” exhibit at the zoo right before it closed which I wish I had seen. I love painting frogs. Ah well…there is plenty of other great reference photos for painting from this trip…including a couple neat frogs who lived in the reptile exhibit.

In the Quarter

Street Musicians

I visited Washington DC in April with my dad because his old college hockey team was playing in the Frozen Four. While I was there, I snapped a lot of photos, many of the resident birds, which everybody made fun of me for. Most people come back from DC with photos of buildings (boring) and I come back with 2/3 photos of: sparrows, starlings, ducks, gulls, and of course pigeons.

Final Painting: "Unappreciated Beauty"

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I had thought this painting was finished a couple months ago, but I added to it again a couple days ago. Originally, the background was quite a bit lighter with more blue and green in it. I took this into my painting class and it is a good example of how the useful feedback enhances my mostly finished work. The instructor suggested I glaze the entire background with a darker color but leave some highlights above the bird. This way, there is a nice contrast because the bird is dark on top and light on the bottom, so the background looks nice being dark on the bottom and light on top. I totally agreed with him and am pleased with how it has turned out after the new enhancement. [Read more →]

I finally snapped a couple mediocre photos of one of my residential hummies. These two are of the same female who I have named HummyBuddy Part2. The male is the first one I saw this year, and I named him HummyBuddy. I actually don’t name things that much on my own, but Robert always asks me what things are named, so I just make something up, and that’s what came out first. HummyBuddy Part2 is simply because I saw her second and she used to be more shy than the male. However, since then she is easier to get photos of because she will come around more when I’m outside. [Read more →]

A couple mornings ago I awoke to the dog excitedly looking out the patio door and half barking. I assumed there was another squirrel peering in…but I went and looked anyway. Unfortunately it was an injured looking white-breasted nuthatch instead. He (or she) was sitting on the step looking traumatized and had possibly had a broken wing, but I was hoping not.

I’m sure the poor nuthatch ran into our big glass patio windows. This hasn’t happened in quite some time. It used to be that we had about one casualty a week, which was upsetting for me as I don’t want to be the cause of any death no matter how small (save for mosquitoes and ticks, I will gladly cause their deaths)…

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I enjoy having hummingbirds in my yard immensely. Although there are plenty of natural flowers in my beautiful yard, I still like to entice hummingbirds to be closer and more consistently to my work desk as much of the day as I can.

Over the last year I have learned a few things about choosing and maintaining hummingbird feeders that I thought I would share for anyone who is interested. [Read more →]

When my dad came to visit last October he bought and put up a bluebird house on an old light pole in my backyard. This turned out to be a great choice as the bluebirds love it and I hear that black snakes and coons have a harder time getting up a wide pole if they are in search of eggs or babies. I have no problem with nature being nature, but I would also appreciate my bluebirds having some babies that make it to have little families of their own.

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