How You, Too, Can Take Unfair Advantage of Cold, Hungry Birds

Red-winged blackbirds make short work of expensive bird seed and shove aside the sparrows, juncos and chickadees. Might as well draw the little beggars.

We’ve had our second snowstorm in a month and a half; a little unusual for Oklahoma, but not out of line for these latitudes. A few days ago an ice storm roared in and sheathed everything with about 1″ of frozen glass, and the following morning the snow started and didn’t stop until the ice was buried by a foot of white fluff. Magically beautiful. Ignore the popping of laden tree branches. They resonate like rifle shots in the clarified silence of the snowscape; I can picture Hussars hunting stags on taiga (or less romantically, neighbors hunting squirrels fattened on my blackoil sunflower seeds).

Deadly beautiful ice storm; trees bow humbly to their cold winter Master.

When it quit snowing, the moon came out. It was full and brilliant and cast crisp blue-green shadows across the fields. The ice on a million branches glittered like a lacework of white neon. Magical.

Deer, emboldened by hunger, looking for green stuff and spilled birdseed.

Naturally, my house is snowbird central for everything feathered and a furred. Suet, seed, cover and open water provided free of charge. When the ice was falling the long-tailed birds got the worst of it; icy clumps adhered to tail feathers. I’ve kept the pond pump on and the waterfall running; bathing and drinking can’t be put off no matter what the weather.

How to get that glowing red on a cardinal? vermillion hue- my new must-have color.

I can’t let an opportunity pass by; I’ve been sketching the meleé from the studio window. Feeder birds are perfect for study and wonderfully convenient, and a lot of shy species are getting bold in their hunger. My feeder list includes 4 species of woodpecker, a red-shouldered hawk (who got white-shouldered in the snowstorm), a noisy mob of 100+ red-winged blackbirds, sparrows of 6 flavors and a brilliant yellow pine warbler. The cardinals give it a real Christmas card touch.

Drawing birds is one part anatomical learning (look at the schematic drawing of a bird at the front of any field guide. It looks kind of like a chart showing a side of beef divided into cuts. Here’s the auricular [ear patch], that’s the mantle [upper back], this is the supercilium [eyebrow] and over here is the brisket. Before drawing, learn the parts) to one part concentrated looking (pick one species and keep looking until your eye adjusts to its proportions. Focus on drawing a particular body type, say, that of a wren, or a sparrow until you’re comfortable with it) to one part memorization (practice “freeze-framing” a single pose in your mind’s eye for the few seconds it takes to put it on paper. Look hard, shut your eyes tight and clench that image in your mind for a second or two. Don’t look back at the bird again- just look down at the paper and draw your mental image).

Pine warbler male chowing down on suet. It's his third winter appearance at Chez Motmot.

Get your hand moving so fast you can whip it around on the paper; don’t fuss over details. For a warmup exercise to help you gain a fast hand, you might try the technique shown in this video.

Red winged blackbirds relax after filling up...

If you’re snowbound and looking for a satisfying challenge, give bird drawing a try. You are a captive audience anyway. Take advantage of the situation and sketch those hungry avian models as they plow through your expensive birdseed and suet. And happy drawing!

Looks like angelfood cake. Needs candles, or strawberries and whipped cream.

Minor Literary Digression, Then Back to Our Regular Program

While browsing the web for my favorite graphite sticks (I prefer the rectangular shaped ones instead of the square cross-section sticks. I like my gray swaths on the wide side) I stumbled across what may be the most arcane author in existence: Philip M. Parker. Never heard of him? Neither had I. But I found him today and am suddenly a fan, thoroughly smitten by this Renaissance Man’s literary output (and wishing I could afford to read it).

His books start at $495. That’s for paperback.

Parker appears to be a polymath for our times. His interests are breathtakingly broad. The titles alone are a feast for the hungry mind:

The 2007-2012 Outlook for Lemon-Flavored Bottled Water in Japan

The 2007-2012 Outlook for Public Building Stacking Chairs Excluding Bar, Bowling Center, Cafeteria, Library, Restaurant, and School Stacking Chairs in India (Paperback)

The 2007-2012 Outlook for Year-Round Unitary Single Package and Remote-Condenser Air Conditioners with at Least 640,000 BTU Per Hour Excluding Heat Pumps in Japan

The 2007-2012 World Outlook for Non-Mechanical Wood-Cased Pencils and Graphite and Colored Sticks

(that’s the one I stumbled across while searching for graphite – it goes for a steep $795- with free shipping- on Amazon.com)

The Product Description is nice:

This study covers the world outlook for non-mechanical wood-cased pencils and graphite and colored sticks across more than 200 countries. For each year reported, estimates are given for the latent demand, or potential industry earnings (P.I.E.), for the country in question (in millions of U.S. dollars), the percent share the country is of the region and of the globe. These comparative benchmarks allow the reader to quickly gauge a country vis-à-vis others. Using econometric models which project fundamental economic dynamics within each country and across countries, latent demand estimates are created. This report does not discuss the specific players in the market serving the latent demand, nor specific details at the product level. The study also does not consider short-term cyclicalities that might affect realized sales. The study, therefore, is strategic in nature, taking an aggregate and long-run view, irrespective of the players or products involved.

Be sure you check out the “Customers who viewed this product” scroll at the bottom.

I am such a fan. Check it out.

Cold, With Chance of Birds

Trumpeter swans grace the Oklahoma waters. Drawn today in Norman.

An Audubon Christmas Bird Count is a good way to find out if you have what it takes to be a birder. With the cold wind in your teeth you peer through the fog on your glasses and the tears in your eyes to count crows and any other hapless birdlife hunkered down and fluffed out on a chilly morning. Birding is a tough sport. Ask a bird.

Dark-eyed juncos face the freezing cold with smug confidence.

I’m not much on toughness but shoved myself out of a warm bed anyway, packed a Cliff Bar and a banana and poured a travel mug of coffee for the day’s count. My part of the count circle included some lonesome backroads and dirt roads. Some were passable, most weren’t. There’s been snow lately, and wet icy rutted red dirt turned me back again and again. Sometimes I’d get out and walk when the road petered out. I was gloomy from the git-go. I had my attitude on backwards. Fortunately, birds are mood-lifters for the cranky.

Yellow-bellied sapsucker squeaks like a mini-red-shouldered hawk, in a happy way.

Really, it’s hard to be cranky when a yellow-bellied sapsucker is chowing down on cedar berries and squeaking every few seconds with sapsucker pleasure. Or when a herd of winter-coated whitetails look back at you, ready to run but ready to stay put, too (in the end they stayed), or when thousands of American robins fill every tree for a mile, singing in the frosty air with red breasts proudly thrust forth- that is sublime.

American Robin head study.

I forgot the cold fingers for a minute as a brown creeper crept under a branch and nearly cried when I drove into a casino parking lot to watch Northern shovelers paddling around the tiny ice-free center of a sewage lagoon. Driving on a fast two-lane highway and catching a familiar shape out of the corner of my eye, I hit the brakes and drove 100 feet in reverse to snag a greater roadrunner for the count list. There were cedar waxwings and Harris’ sparrows and flickers and lots and lots of yellow-bellied sapsuckers, all of them squeaking happily. 49 species for me personally and 108 for the Norman count (as of today’s tally with almost everyone reporting). And at the end of the day, I had my attitude on forward and my mood uplifted nicely, yes indeed.

Heads down and bottoms up, Trumpeter swans are magnificent even when awkward. They have much to teach us.

Trumpeter swans were reported on the count (by other counters) at a small artificial lake in a housing addition in Norman. The last time I saw trumpeter swans, they were on their nests in the muskeg of Alaska, heads high and alert on those long white necks, emblems of  true rugged wilderness. Today I grabbed my scope and sketchbook and drew all eight of the majestic birds, wild as anything that ever lived, dunking their heads and long necks into the cold ignoble water of a housing tract pond, going bottoms up and paddling the air with their shiny black feet. Sublime and ridiculous at once, they cheered me up more than I can ever say.