We had a lot of young Common Loons born this year on the Lake. I was lucky to be able to observe and sketch them going about their business:
Here are studies of an adult Loon as well as a stressed out Chipping Sparrow mom:
And finally, a real treat. We had young Broad-Winged Hawks fledging right in our backyard! We came to call them the "Hawkward Teens", and it was a wonderful thing to get to watch them grow up.
Now if you have been following me on Twitter, you probably have already been seeing updates on my vegetable and herb gardens popping up here and there. If not, here is an update and a bit more explanation.
This year, for a change of pace and based upon what we learned from our first garden last year, I decided to put all the herbs in window boxes instead of in the garden proper. It will give the veggies more breathing room and -more importantly- the herbs will be right out on the back deck near the kitchen. They'll be easier to get at and we'll have more impetus to use them while cooking.
In the main garden, I stuck with tomatoes and squash mostly, as they did the best last time. I avoided cucumbers and peppers as they didn't do nearly as well. I also planted a lot of seeds, and have more seeds getting ready in starter pots.
We had a lot of violent rains early in the season. Most of the plants and seeds enjoyed this while a couple didn't make it. A lot of seeds are sprouting, and that lettuce is crazy!
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Sketch of the Day!
I got a most unusual commission recently. Here are some very early ideas for it:
My tulips from last week's post have since faded and my oft-ignored front garden needed some love. I got a great deal on perennials at Big Box Home Building Supply Store. Holy hraka, those Harebells!
They're giving a small "bald spot" in the front lawn some color.
More importantly, the Meadow Sage, Harebells, Columbines, Irises, Buddleja, and Delphiniums (the latter three had not yet bloomed when I took this photo) are all flowers loved by hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. In this little sunny spot, I've created a wildlife habitat. At the Big Box Garden and Home Center, the plants cost about fifty dollars total and I had the little whimsical touches. It's that easy.
I may be modifying this garden as the summer goes on, so, as with the veggie garden, I will make myself post periodic updates on it.
Speaking of the veggie garden. In the Herb/Salad Greens section, I added some Rosemary and Parsley that was languishing in the Evil Big Box Store I "rescued" them from. In the Squash/Cucumber section, the plants have grown some real leaves! There isn't anything as exciting going on with the tomatoes; they look about the same. I did just realize that most of the plants in the vegetable garden are actually fruit...
Owww... my thing that was my brain but is now leaking out my ears.
Yes, I will admit that I partied a little too hearty. Or hard-y? Anyway, it will take me a while to sort through everything from the trip and write about it at length.
I also had the bad luck to catch something unpleasant from one of the little bratty kids sitting behind me on the plane ride home. (I like kids, but when I am queen, the first new rule will be that airplanes must have special Adults With Young Children and Adults Without Young Children sections. Everyone will be happier because, as a very general rule, little kids *hate* sitting in a tin can, far above the world for hours and hours.)
So in lieu of actual content, here is yet another edition of Links Of Interest!
O.T.I.S. visited the LaBrea Tar Pits, without a doubt my favorite thing in Los Angeles.
"Rango" is apparently much better than it looks, but it is really, really strange. If you like animated films that are really strange, IndieWire has a pretty good list.
Finally, while we are on the subject of experimental and/or indie animation, Topless Robot had a fantastic overview of the dearly missed "Mtv's Liquid Television". I very definitely remember seeing some of these clips as a child and being freaked the eff out.
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Sketch of the Day!
As you might imagine, it's a little difficult to sketch from a moving vehicle. Nonetheless, I wouldn't give up this sight for all the Audio-Animatronic Yetis in the world:
Right now, beavers are headed into their dens for a perceived night that will last for weeks and weeks. Snapping turtles are settling down in the bottom of the lake, and there they will sleep without taking a breath of fresh air for up to five months. All the Monarch butterflies from the entire east coast of the United States are dormant in a single mountain forest that is *just* the right temperature for their liking. Some animals have slowed their bodies down to a point where they are barely alive, while others are preparing to brisk about in life, day and night, at temperatures that would make a human cry.
Among these animals is the tiny Golden-Crowned Kinglet, a hummingbird-sized snow-fairy of the Arctic woods. Your Field Guide probably spends a grand total of one paragraph on Kinglets. I'd only seen them in the wild once or twice, and thought they were cute. I did not know that they were also incredibly bad-ass.
That is the way of all winter creatures, and their stories are told in Bernd Heinrich's Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival. It's a terrific book and I am struggling to finish it on this, it's date due back to the library. I don't want to get too off-topic, but I don't know what happened to me. I feel like I devoured long nonfiction books in high school and now it's like I lost the patience for them. I haven't got the slightest idea why this is so; I love learning and Heinrich's books always leave me astonished at the biological wonders I did not know.
Bernd even throws his hat into the long-running argument over how birds evolved flight feathers. Body feathers are a remarkable insulation -- when they are dry. Getting them wet would be lethal. Wing feathers, therefore, may have initially appeared as built-in umbrellas.
As for the Kinglet, this theory is pretty sound. Bernd illustrates the book with his own sensitive pencil illustrations, and one such illustration (page 112) is of a Kinglet underneath all the feathers. Turns out body feathers add even more perceived bulk than I ever suspected. That the plucked songbird looks astonishingly like an old drawing of a small theropod does not go unnoticed by the author.
Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" is this year's Jolly Christmas Song That Won't Leave Me Alone. And I will admit that I was among those who thought it was stupid and annoying... until I saw the video for it.
The video is trippy as hell and at least ten kinds of distinctively late 1970's music video awesome:
Best parts include the giant constellation-God-thing that sprinkles Dust all over Paul's piano, the choir in space, giant flying disco balls, a giant irradiated horse in the sky, Paul and friends watching... themselves on TV, two glowing figures in space who seem just about to make out but don't, and that huge exploding gift at the end. Holy Christmas.
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Sketch of the Day!
I am not even going to make an attempt to top that:
Once again, it is time to set up our bird feeders and fill them with delicious treats for our favorite winged theropods. It's time to switch our weather alerts to Celsius. It's time to participate in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Project Feederwatch.
Data on the migratory and feeding patterns of backyard birds is very valuable, and Feederwatch is probably the easiest of Cornell's citizen science projects to participate in. It couldn't be simpler:
1) Choose two consecutive days per week. Weekends are fine.
2) Keep an eye on your backyard during these days. It doesn't matter if it's all day or a few minutes.
3) Keep a log of (a) the weather and (b) how many birds of each species you see at a time.
This last part is often confusing for some people. If you look out the window on Saturday and see twenty House Sparrows (as an aside, it's okay to estimate if the birds arrive in big flocks), write that down. If you look out on Sunday and see fifty sparrows, scratch out your "twenty" count and write that down. This is because of part 4:
4) At the end of your second day, go to the Cornell Data Entry website and record the LARGEST number for each species you have seen over your two days.
And that's basically it. Really, all the information you need is at the Cornell website.
There are a few readers last year who were curious as to what birdseed I use. As you can see in the picture above, I use a blend. If you're making your own blend, start with sunflower seeds. Note that Black-Oil Sunflower seeds are easiest for birds to consume. I remember years ago being able to purchase bulk bags of Striped Sunflower seeds, but it seems as though those seeds are being relegated to being human food. You can experiment with Striped if you can find some that haven't been roasted, flavored, salted, or what-have-you.
Add some unsalted, unflavored, un-messed-around-with peanuts. You can experiment with other nuts (especially tree nuts), and small dried fruits like raisins and "craisins" are usually a big hit too, especially in winter. Avoid trail mixes as these often contain chocolate (as bad for birds as it is for dogs, poor things), yogurt, and other weird foods. The very patient among us can start collecting fruit seeds, like I have with the pumpkins (argh but not with the record number of Gala apples I consumed this autumn.)
Speaking of fruit, overripe fruit can go over well with wild animals. But, and I cannot emphasize this enough, DO NOT BE CHEAP AND TOSS STALE BREAD OUT THERE BREAD IS BASICALLY THE WORST THING YOU COULD FEED A BIRD!!!!! Read this Tetrapod Zoology post for more - much more; more than you could ever possibly want to know - about this. Aside from fruit, there are also... let's call them more exotic options. (For the record, this is a line I will not cross.)
So I usually get one big bag of sunflower seeds and a little bag of mixed seeds (this covers the "little stuff"), a jar of shelled peanuts, and a big box of raisins. And I can usually get all of this for a decent price at Ocean State Job Lot. (I have a future post in me arguing against expensive bird seed -- but keep in mind that the primary consumers of my seeds are house sparrows. Your mileage may vary.) I mix everything together in --this is very important-- a big plastic tub with a lid that closes very tightly. I even go further and keep my tub well off the ground and weigh the lid down. You want the critters to stay in the yard, not venture into the basement.
And speaking of critters...
Tolerance of mammals at your bird feeder is another "mileage may vary" issue. Some people are totally cool with the occasional squirrel. I am too -- as long as they are scarfing up whatever has fallen out of the feeder and aren't raiding the feeder itself.
To that end, I can't recommend a squirrel-proof feeder highly enough. The one I use is a hopper feeder that has a counterweight design; there's a little door above the opening that snaps shut if something that weighs a lot more than a bird sits on the perch. (It's not this model, but it looks very similar.) It has the added advantage of making sure huge crowds of house sparrows can't empty the feeder in one sitting (which, unfortunately, they absolutely will).
There are other designs, including the spectacular Yankee Flipper (here's a video of this thing in action, with a perfect soundtrack, and I get the sense that Droll Yankee invented it just for the LOLs.) If you don't have access to these feeders, a "baffle" works pretty well, and you could always try greasing your feeder pole. Best thing to do, really, is resign yourself to the fact that, if a squirrel could smell birdseed on Mars, he'd find some way to get at it.
I set my feeder in an area that's relatively hidden from the street, not too close to the hedges where the sparrows hang out and where predators could lurk, and in kind of an open spot among the lilacs (not to close to the trees that squirrels could jump from them to the feeder, but close enough for the birds to feel they could dive in them for safety if the neighbors' cat comes to investigate.) And, of course, it's in full view of my biggest window, without being anywhere near the window. Having birds flying around near a big window is just inevitably going to end in tragedy. On a similar note, keep your cats and dogs inside during the mid-morning and afternoon, as those tend to be the peak feeding times.
While we are on the subject of Carnivore Confusion, I tolerate hawks. The very few I have seen always go after the house sparrows. If you do not enjoy the sight of a Sharpie PWNING a sparrow in your own backyard, then what kind of birdwatcher ARE you?
I'll write more about bird feeding once I actually get my feeder up, as there are a lot of issues yet to cover. For those of you starting your counts early, good luck! Here's to a great season!
The Maine Wildlife Park in Gray, Maine is another of my absolute favorite places to sketch. There's no real substitute for sketching from life. Especially when you run into a good model like this porcupine:
And this moose:
The Park is run by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and started out as a facility for raising game birds like pheasants and turkeys. Formerly known as the Gray Game Farm, it expanded it's purpose to rehabilitating injured animals of all species.
Today, the Wildlife Park serves as a shelter and rehabilitation center for wild animals who, for some reason or other, cannot survive outside the zoo. Representative species of most New England mammals are one of the Park's highlights. (Though you will probably run into some Hazards of Sketching In Public, like I did. See the quote I overheard in the page below. And the dreaded All Animals are Domesticated trope affects this park like no other...)
A few days ago, I had a teeny tiny flight-capable maniraptor with a beak sized and shaped very like an embroidery needle who subsists on a diet of straight-up sugar water hovering and feeding just a few inches from my squishy, easily-injured big clumsy primate eyeballs. It looked like this:
(I apologize for the blurriness, but it's a wonder I got this photograph at all. If you look close, you can see the very beginnings of the namesake sparkly red throat feathers, meaning this little guy is a young male.) Yes, the Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds are showing up en mass at my feeders. I had just one up during much of the summer, but I now have three, of varying sizes and shapes. They're all the standard kind you can get for under ten bucks at Evil Big Box Store, but honestly they work quite well. They seem to enjoy the little feeder that looks similar to this design best (mine has many more feeding ports). But the Opus Oriole Feeder (which the Orioles have staunchly ignored, go figure) is gaining in popularity, especially after I made smaller hummer-friendly perches with garden wires as seen here:
I never know what the consensus is on store-bought nectar mixes. Every spring it seems as though we get a warning not to use red dyed food, even though I've never heard any circumstantial reports that such food is dangerous. But I stopped using store-bought food last summer just in case -- and also because homebrew nectar mix is so ridiculously easy. Here's what you do:
1) Put three and a half to four cups of water in a teapot (the less water you use, the sweeter the mixture will be; my hummers seem to like the 3.5 cups best). Bring this to a boil. 2) Put one cup of sugar in a heatproof container. A large-ish saucepan works well, just as long as it can contain the water you are currently boiling. 3) When the water is boiled, remove it from the heat, then pour it in with the sugar and mix it together. Set it aside to cool and fully dissolve for a while, then refrigerate it in a pitcher or repurposed iced tea bottle. And you're done!
Some notes: No, it isn't dangerous for humans if they accidentally drink this; it's just sugar water. Yes, you must use sugar, not honey and certainly not fake sugar/Splenda/Sweet-N-Low/whatever. Nor shall you use brown sugar, confectioners sugar, or powdered sugar. Just ordinary table sugar will do. My rule of thumb: if I wouldn't put it in my coffee, I wouldn't make the Hummingbirds drink it either.
Wikkid Important Edit: Sheri Williamson of the lovely "Life, Birds, and Everything" blog commends my use of homemade sugar water because the dyes and preservatives used in store-bought nectar mixes are linked "with DNA damage (oh God, WHAT?), abnormal behavior, abnormal sperm, reduced reproductive success, reduced body and brain weight, and... increased hyperactivity symptoms." The idea of a hummingbird suffering from increased hyperactivity is going to be tonight's nightmare fuel.
And please brew some nectar and set up a feeder. It's been an unusually dry summer and these little guys have a hell of a lousy trip ahead of them.
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Sketch of the Day!
You haven't had enough of Hummingbirds have you?
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There's a new teaser trailer for "Tangled" "Rapunzel" out and...
I've said before that if you go back and watch old trailers for the Disney classics, NONE of them inspire confidence. But this... this is like a "Scott Pilgrim" level of boneheaded advertising (and I say this because if "Rapunzel" bombs, it'll be for the same reason "Pilgrim" did: the wildly misaimed and utterly baffling marketing campaign.) Between this and the loathed "BLAM!!!" -uh- things, this is why you can't have nice things, Disney.
Well, fellow New Englanders, I hope you are all enjoying the snowy Solstice. I drew this little Junco yesterday. I hadn't seen snowbirds all year, so I was happy to see a small flock in my backyard all day. It felt Christmassy. I had filled the feeders the night before on a whim and there wasn't a flake until well after midnight. Now for some stuff that's too funny/scary not to share: Yes, this is silly and more than a little sloppy, but I had to make a point here. The Disney Channel used to show their version of "Babes in Toyland" over and over around Christmastime. I never actually watched the whole movie the whole way through, but I must have seen most of these scenes anyway, tuning in to TDC hoping they'd be showing anything else. This might also explain why I was surprised at how short it was. Anyone else have an experience like this?
Updates will resume in January. Everybody have a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year!
Well, first off, here's some art. Click for big: A week ago, I worked in the garden for the first time in months. I will not put off working in the garden for months if I can at all help it ever again. I had to dig up a lot of weeds and encroaching grass (it is almost hilarious how I have grass growing happily where I do not want it and no grass at all where I do want it.) As of the time I am writing this, I'm still hurting in some sensitive areas.
(Oh, calm down. I meant my joints. And my thumbnails. And my most of me.)
I don't know if I've had a chance to mention this before, and even so, I'm hoping some of you are new readers who met me at Boston Comicon and are doing an archive binge of this blog (I am extremely and very nerdily honored if this is the case). I am a native New Englander. That means I am genetically predisposed to complain about the weather. However, to be honest, I like seasonality. I like the fact that the growing season is ephemeral up here; it makes it all the more lovely. And I enjoy colorful leaves in autumn and -brace yourselves- I like snow.
With all that said, I'm wondering if spring bulbs are a distinctly temperate zone phenomenon. I had a fair number of daffodils early this spring, but I figured this would be a good year to replenish the garden. Bulbs are fairly easy to deal with and are a great choice for a family project - IF your kids are patient.
Like, having to wait up to twenty-four weeks for "delivery" patient.
You see, that's the downside of planting bulbs. Actually getting them in the ground takes a bit of effort and good timing (wait until after Daylight Savings Time ends and you may have completely wasted your money). I've got at least 120 out there now, and I am betting that at least half of them make it through the winter.
If this makes you cringe, you'll be happy to know that bulbs are easy to "cheat". Wait until the week after Easter (April 4, 2010) and you can snap up full-grown tulips and hyacinths for half off. This is much more expensive than planting bulbs en mass in autumn - but it's also easier on the nerves.
This is how most books of gardening will encourage you to plant bulbs.
And normally, I don't do this. I've done it with the onions only because they're easy to see and I only have a few of them. For tulips, daffodils, and the Anemones I'm experimenting with for the first time, I just dug a pit several inches deep, tossed the bulbs in, set them right-side up, and covered them with dirt and mulch. It's just as random as the "scattering" method shown above and much easier to keep track of. And this is the "after" picture. The yellow and burgundy mums are there just for color as my perennials have all gone to seed. Occasionally, these mums will turn out to be perennials themselves, and will show green leaves early in spring.
As a funny addendum to the previous post, there is now no evidence *at all* of the storm on Sunday. As a matter of fact, it was pretty warm in the sun on Monday.
So now, the only major thing to do out there is get the bird feeder set up...
And here are the new plants I planted. They were all just too unusual to leave at the Giant Hardware Store. I've never experimented with Primula Primroses before and these were the last two they had. The Species Tulips (Tulipa tarda) were just too cool, and they now reside out front. And the little tiny tree is a Redtwig Dogwood (Red Osier to our friends out west, Cornus sericea to everyone else). Technically, it's a shrub. But it'll flower, and it'll fruit, and it may get to be around three times as tall as it is now. (I don't know if there are any hard and fast rules as to what gets to be called a tree and what gets to be called a shrub.)
How about an Arbor day song sung by a Cardinal with an odd-looking beak who can apparently alter his size at will? I can assure you that when I am very old, when I forget everything important in life, I will be singing the line about how "that's where squirrels spend their time!"
This PSA of sorts was created for a different convention, but the safety tips within are still relevant:
Last Feederwatch Friday Ever I have to say, participating in Project Feederwatch was fun. I'd absolutely consider doing it again. Right now, in the backyard, there's more shipping out there than in a message board run by "Avatar" fangirls. Fun fact: Woodpeckers are cute but they fight dirty.
Raise your hand if you've got "Never Gonna Give You Up" in your head after yesterday.
This is not a To-Do List. This is a Can-Do List. I usually get to thinking about this after my birthday. Various things I'd like to get accomplished / make a habit of by this time next year:
* - Draw more! I want to see up to five new pieces on my Flickr page by the end of each week.
* - Learn more about Flash. I don't know if I want to buy the full program ($700 makes me go 😵 ) , but I've got the trial and playing with it would give me terrific additions to my skill set.
* - Make really good friends with the local print shop. They've made me beautiful promotional items in the past. I'm certainly going to need more soon.
* - Attend every Gathering Of Art-Type People Event possible. Volunteer with the local Art Association. The next Comic-Con in Boston is coming up, so I should send an email inquiring about renting a table right after this post is published.
* - Read my copy of the Writer/Illustrator Market book and get dead f-ing serious about getting myself known to the publishers I like.
* - Decide what I want to do with my other websites. Specifically, should I just repost the best blog posts from my retired MySpace page? Should I overhaul LaGremlin-Land or just let it stagnate like so many "I just graduated from college let's make a free website for the lulz" Geocities pages?
* - Get crafty again. Make a bunch of little cute things to sell on the Ebay.
* - Reevaluate some of my collections. What am I willing to sell on the Ebay? (Read: "Why do I even HAVE fifty Beanie Babies?")
* - Make a rule about Ebay: for every one item I bid on and win (read: for every My Little Pony who joins my herd) I must sell three items (they don't have to be Ponies; see immediately above). I won three MLP-related auctions this very weekend and... my God. I can already see myself being very bad. (Dammit, even now there's a quiet little voice inside me crying, "But... but... we ALMOST have ALL the So-Soft Pegasi we're only missing sixfivefourthree TWO of them! Sing with me! SING!") .
* - Get my damned driver's license already. And with the price of gas and such, what better time to do it!
* - Take more walks once it gets warmer/dryer. Visit different places locally just for fun. Get inspired, get exercise. Maybe even do some plein air painting along the way?
* - Read. Read, read, read, read, read. Try to get through one book a week like I did that one great summer in High School.
* - Watch more animation. Never a bad thing.
* - Get serious about gardening. Enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes with it. Might put in some berry bushes in the large empty areas. Might even plant a tree.
* - Don't be too hard on myself if extenuating circumstances put snags in some of these plans.
And that last bit is important...
Feederwatch Thursday!
Your Power Bird is a Cardinal
You believe that each day is precious, and you spend your times as best as you can.
You see the wonder in small things, and you are often content with what you have.
You life an interesting, colorful life - and you bring color to those around you.
Confident and expressive, you believe you know how to live a good life. You're living it!
Um... okay! Oh, wait, it's one of those blog quiz thingies where your very first answer determines the result.
As far as the birds in my backyard go, the pairings are still underway. The House Sparrows have dispersed and there is a distinctly different tone to the chirps of those who have stayed. I put out a feast on Tuesday evening but the heavy winds on Wednesday kept anyone from really enjoying it.
Right now, one of the Blue Jays is giving that awesome "rusty swingset" song.
Totally irrelevant but awesome:
I can't help but imagine that Snoopy would completely own the whole show if he were a contestant in "Dancing With the Stars".
Of course you haven't! The thistle sock is off to the right in the Dogwood tree. So far, nobody's gone for it, though it's not for lack of trying on the part of the House Sparrows. And putting the feeder out in the middle of the yard, well away from the hedge, has not discouraged the sparrows one bit. Oh well. I at least got to list a nuthatch.
And then this squirrel showed up.
As soon as I saw him limping around, I knew something was up. It's hard to see in the photo, but it looks like something took a bite out of his shoulder. Otherwise he's fine.
It's Oscar weekend! Yay!
