Pygmy owl and Hawfinch

It's been a while since I last saw a Pygmy owl, so I was more than happy when encountering one while birding with a friend of mine.

I also got to take a very close look of a Hawfinch over a week ago, when one of those appeared into a mist net while ringing. Though getting to take a real close look helped in determineing how I would want to draw a Hawfinch, though it took me a while to get the right feel into my drawings. This one is decent - though the wing is too small and the patterns on the wing aren't correct and the head is big... But the attitude is what I had in mind (so at least something went right here).

Nuts, what hatches out of nuts?

Nuthatches are definitely among the most fun birds to draw. For some reason they are simply irresistible drawing subjects. These few sketches were done during some lectures (if I've got pen and paper at hand, it is impossible for me not to draw).

Sitta europaea, Roadrunner edition.

The drawings were done with black biro - thus not a single line could be taken out and mistakes had to be dealt with in some other way.

This one must have seen a nut.

More LTTs

I just had to have another go on Long-tailed tits. This time watercolor on cardboard.

Long-tailed tits

Oh joy, I was birding with a friend of mine when we encountered a fellow birder ringing Longtailed tits. I got to hold one, and to release one. Seeing them up close was quite special, Long-tailed tit has always been one of my favorite bird species. I was grinning for the rest of the day.

The painting wasn't done very "seriously" - just a quickie with no idea on how I wanted it to turn out. It's all paint (gouache), there was now drawing on the cardboard, even no sketches. I started by jotting down beaks and eyes all around the board and then working forward from there.

I've now signed up to take a ringing exam.

Smew, Smew, Smew

This is an older painting - and reminds me of why I eventually decided to pursue painting and drawing birds more seriously than photography. It was the very first male Smew I've ever seen. I only got a short glimpse of it through my binoculars as it was hurrying away and almost instantly took flight with the other Smew.

What my camera got out of the situation is this:

Thus, when I got home, I took out my paints and worked the image I had in my mind into a painting.

Fortunately it wasn't the last time I got to see a Smew up close. Since then I've actually seen one even better (another white male), from around 5 meters, calmly preening. And even though the white male is a beauty, I've got a soft spot for the species itself. This Fall I've had the chance to enjoy dozens of Smew on a nearby lake.

A flock is quite a lot of fun to watch when it's fishing. They're constantly on move - and almost impossible to count. When one dives, all the others follow, popping up one by one after a while. When they rest, they are just as much fun. Some of them are preening, some are taking a nap, and some are still patrolling for fish.

Magpie

The magpie is a pretty bird - and fun to watch every time one manages to remember that though quite common, it's worth having a look at. This fellow kept me company while I was fixing my bike. I was crouching behind my bike, the maggie was scooting around in front of me, chasing a lunch most probably.

Red-throated divers & Gyr drawing!

I'm quite well aquainted with the Black-throated Divers (such a beautiful bird), but before this summer I've never seen a single Red-throated diver close enough to be viewed with binoculars only (previous sightings were migrating and a Swarovski with 60x magnification was needed to determine the dots on the sky in the distance were actually Red-throated Ds). I didn't expect to see the divers at the small lake. I was just scetching a Wagtail, and just quickly skanned the lake to check if there'd be an Arctic Tern flying by. Instead, there were two Red-throated divers.

My notes in the scetch say that the weather was cloudy and somewhat rainy so the colors of the birds couldn't be seen very clearly, and that the RTDs look a lot more slender than the BTDs. On the right hand I've attempted to capture the action of diving, the slight jerk of the head that is very subtle but nevertheless it would be interesting to watch that in slow motion.

Here's also a Gyr falcon I drew with Derwent Drawing -pencils during my holiday.


It's a species I've never seen, but it's such a magnificent bird I couldn't resist the temptation of giving a try at drawing one. I know the back of the bird should be striped, the beak should be bigger and the look of it more fierce in general. I'll have to give it another try sometime. Or maybe I'll do a Peregrine in gouache - a falcon I've actually had the pleasure of seeing.

Whinchat

Today I had the opportunity to sketch a sweet little Whinchat. It was flying from a tree to another, and finally stayed for a while singing in a bare tree. The cloud formations behind it were quite special, but unfortunately I couldn't quite capture them in my gouache painting of the little Whinchat.

The Whinchat surprised me with its vocal abilities: I'd never have imagined it could have such a variety of sounds included in its song. Definitely one of my favorite singers!

Little Tern

I've been learning to use gouache for the past week or so, and at the moment I'm enjoying using this kind of paint a lot. Today I ended up painting a little tern I observed and sketched yesterday. At first it was just flying around fishing enthusiastically. Finally it decided to have a bath and then do some preening on the shore.

There's something wrong with the wing and the wing feathers. I'll have to pay more attention on how the wing folds next time I get to observe a preening tern.

Phalaropes!

Red-necked Phalaropes are such cute things, so I was more than happy, when I got to scetch them through a friends telescope for a while on Monday. The painting I did based on the scetches and checking color pattenrs and details from photos.

A Phalarope running on sand was a new sight to me. There were 5 of them scurrying arond among the gulls. Eventually some of them decided to give us a swimming performance, swirling in water in their trademark manner.

Summer!

It's actually been pretty quiet lately. The summer is finally here for good, the birds are nesting, and I'm trying to get used to the idea that I'm spending my summer here in the city where I study, not at my parents' place. Thus, this year I'll have different species keep me company than last year. Here's a stonechat from a week or so back. Maybe soon I'll have a chance to spend some (quality) time with Great crested grebes (the two little lakes near by are full of them).

Something different

It's not all birds, though... I almost panicked, when I found a cute hedgehog and realised I'd left my camera home. Then I remembered I did have pen and paper. So I sat down on the ground beside the terrified little thing and started scetching. After a while the hedgy decided I wasn't dangerous, took its nose out of the leaves and started snuffling around.

Wolves are very dear to me. I've loved them for long, and it's the animal I know best - information- and illustrationwise.

This one is made based on memory. It might not be perfect, but I'm happy with it, considering that I haven't been doing that many wolves lately.

Terek's Sandpiper!

Terek's sandpiper is another rarity I've been lucky enough to see. A friend of mine called me on the phone: "Guess what I've got right in front of me?" "Well?" "A pair of Terek's Sandpipers!" You can imagin I was out of the bookstore and on my way pretty fast.

I made scetches of the birds later on, using a color pencil (light blueish gray) and found it to be a wonderful scetching tool.

Also did some scetces of other waders.

Back to the present

Since the Smew is such a shy bird, I never imagined I'd get a good chance to see, let alone scetch one from close distance. Yet miracles do happen. Little did I know what I'd find, when I decided to visit the corner of a nearby lake one morning. A beautiful male smew, and definitely at scetching distance. Thus I started filling pages in my small A5 size scetchbook (wishing I'd had had the bigger one with me).

Later in the evening during choir practice I had a chance to do some more scetching, memory based. It was quite exciting to realize, that after having done so much field scetching, I could actually remember the color patterns still in the evening.

The Smew had a huge crush on a female Golden eye and was enthusiastically chasing off male Golden eyes. The sight was quite comical, since the Smew is noticeably smaller than the Golden eyes, yet managed to chase three of them off at best.

The love struck Smew wasn't its shy own self, but instead forgot to watch out (or I managed to stay still enough), since at closest the beauty was only at the distance of around 10 meters. Just think of it! Every single detail stood clearly out in the soft morning light.

More older stuff

Here's still some older scetches from winter 2006-2007. The nuthatch was an exciting lifer, ands such a cutie, I did loads of drawings of it. The mistle thrush was drawn based on memory of a picture taken by a fellow birdwatcher.

The Black-throated thrush, another lifer, for which I had to walk quite a distance. But the bird was most definitely worth the walk.

Dipper must be one of my favorite birds. This drawing is again drawn memory based of a picture.

I'm a huge fan of woodpeckers, the Three toed being one of my favorites. This one was preening and drumming in a dry tree.

The beginning - Azure tit

Welcome to my very first blog!

I've been drawing ever since I was just a little girl. Some of my very first scetches include a whole page full of birds. Though during elementary school and junior high my main drawing objects were wolves, foxes, dogs and cats, I've now started to return to my roots - to drawing birds.

During Fall 2006 I started to get more serious about birdwatching. As I realised I didn't have a camera to record my sightings visually, I had only one option left - to draw down what I saw. And when an Azure tit appeared in my home city (a very rare migrant from Russia), I was desparate to have some kind visual record of my encounter with the blue and white little fellow.

I didn't have much of a chance to make field scetches, but later on I did some based on memory, and checking the color patterns from a bird guide. Since I wasn't satisfied, I moved on to do some drawings based on actual pictures, and after that took out my memories again and did a couple of drawings and paintings.

The Azure liked to hang around in bushes. It was December, and the seashore was dull gray and cold, but the little thing was happily hopping around in the bushes, brightening up the day of those, who got to see it. I've wanted to see one ever since 1999 when I first saw a picture of one. Thus the encounter was extra special for me.

It was quite a sight to have my "dream bird" right in front of me at a close distance, calmly minding its own business. It flew to the top of the reed...and slid down. Flew up again...and slid down, obviously having (almost as much) fun as the one observing it. The Azure is still the most special rarity I've seen, and no doubt will remain the dearest.