Friday Feathers- Drawing The Motmot

Rufous motmots, tails going tick-tock. Biggest motmot species in Panama. Biggest and most secretive, as far as I’m concerned. Watercolor over pencil, Stillman & Birn Alpha Series 8 1/2″ x 11″ sketchbook. Barro Colorado Island.

The motmot embodies the mystery of the tropics, an invisible voice behind the jungle’s green curtain. Secretive, it sometimes hides in plain view, relying on stillness for camouflage. The motmot is a ventriloquist. Its deep double note resonates from everywhere and no place in particular. Hoot-hoot. Mot-mot.

The Broad billed motmot looks much like the rufous motmot,  but is a bit smaller, has a blue chin and a call that sounds like a toy train whistle. Usually it’s not so picky about who’s watching it, either, which is really nice. Oh, and the blue black grosbeak is a female- cocoa brown. Her mate is bluish-black. They’re a little understory bird with an almost parrot-style chunky bill. Watercolor over pencil, S&B Alpha Series 8 1/2″ x 11″. Barro Colorado Island, Panama.

The elusive motmot is on every birder’s wish list and of course will be seen sooner or later. They are shy but not impossible. Patience and a quiet is the key to finding the motmot. Drawing it is another story.

Broad billed motmot, three poses, one bird. Drawn through the scope. 6B pencil on Robert Bateman sketchbook 8 1/2″ x 11″. Barro Colorado Island.

It’s our last day on the Island of Barro Colorado. I have 5 blank pages left in my  sketchbook, and once I fill them up I will pack and feel wistful. Home beckons. A cat awaits. The lawn needs mowing. Onward and northward.

Happy Friday.

Rufous motmot, seen from the trail below, peering through a screen of  motmot-shaped leaves, which were edited out on the fly.  6B pencil on Robert Bateman 8 1’2″ x 11″ sketchbook. Barro Colorado Island, Panama.

Broad billed motmot scanning from a complicated knot of branched wood just meters from our porch. Mechanical pencil and water soluble graphite on Robert Bateman 8 1/2″ x 11″ sketchbook. Barro Colorado Island.

Random Oddities from the Rainforest Planet

Cavenillesia platanifolia, a.k.a. cuipo tree seedling. Huge, jelly-filled winged fruit germinates on forest floor with a big-leafed seedling that grows into an enormous barrel-shaped tree which rings like a gong when you knock. The jelly is for moisture uptake and retention (Nancy C. Garwood, American Journal of Botany Vol. 72, No. 7, The role of mucilage in the germination of cuipo, Cavanillesia platanifolia, a tropical tree) like those water-expanding granules you add to potting soil. Most peculiar botanical wonder. Watercolor on S&B Alpha Series. Barro Colorado Island, Panama.

The word of the day: mucilage. Rolls right off the tongue.

Here’s a mature cuipo tree on the ground. One of the big canopy trees, it’s closely related to the giant ceiba. It’s also related to okra. Looks like a vase and sounds like a water tank if you knock. It even sloshes a little. There’s a small grove of different sized cuipos here and each one plays a different note, like wooden bars on a marimba. Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Pencil drawing, 8 1/2″ x 11″ Robert Bateman sketchbook.

It’s a zoo out here. And a botanical garden. And a science camp, a steam bath and a cabinet of wonders all grabbled up in one writhing clump of carbon-based life-cycles. I’m still watching the oropendolas, my current top-rated soap opera. But weirdness needs love, too, and here are a few rare moments of it, caught on paper. The weirdest is saved for last, naturally.

Eulaema; Orchid Bee, head-standing inexplicably on the side of a tree in the forest. Flies in circles for a minute and at the end of each buzzy go-round lands on this one spot, forehead pressed against the bark, long hind legs tilting up the gaster. Maybe not random, since it likely serves the purpose of mate attraction, but nonetheless, very odd. Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Pencil drawing.

A big dark purple hummingbird lights on a mossy branch in a sunbeam, where it washes armpits and drinks simultaneously, flicking its long tongue into the soaked moss. Watercolor over pencil, S&B Alpha Series. Barro Colorado Island, Panama.

Slaty antshrike faces off against a praying mantis at dawn, where both try to score a moth worn out battering all night against a path lamp. A standoff, then one of the predators becomes prey. Can you guess which? Watercolor over pencil, S&B Alpha Series. Barro Colorado Island, Panama.

It’s startling when a rodent-like deer walks toward you in the rainforest. A brocket does not fit a North American’s search image for deer. For starters, it’s the size of a dog. I had a head-swiveling moment like this the first time I saw a capybara, too. And that’s a rodent that looks like a deer. The tropics are just bewildering. Watercolor over pencil, S&B Alpha Series sketchbook, 8 1/2″ x 11″. Barro Colorado Island, Panama.

Peanut head bug, Fulgora laternaria. Most weird of all. The “head” looks like a rubber ducky, or a rubber alligator. It’s a true bug, in the order Hemiptera, meaning its mouth is a straw and it sucks plant juices. Watercolor over pencil, drawn from a live specimen captured and released unharmed by noted cicada expert Brian Stucky. I also worked from his excellent photos. Thanks, Brian!

I’ve posted new sketchbooks in a pull-down menu on the navigation bar and will add more in time. Sketching Barro Colorado Island is wonderful for oddities and rainforest weirdness, much of it random and mysterious, begging to be deciphered. There’s a whole planet out there. It’s good that so much of it makes so little sense.

Friday Feathers- The Lady Oropendola Weaving Collective

Female chestnut-headed oropendolas weaving together a new nest. When completed it will hang under the branch like a stuffed Christmas stocking. Watercolor over pencil, sketched through field scope. Barro Colorado Island, Panama. 10″ x 11″ (across two pages), Stillman & Birn Alpha Series sketchbook.

A flock of chestnut headed oropendolas, oriole relatives common to the Canal Zone of Panama, are establishing a colony in a bare-branched tree near our cabina on the hill. There are seven of them and they’ve just gotten started as of yesterday. The males posture and blurp while the girls do the hard work: gathering fibers to weave long-necked tree-top cradles in which they’ll rock their babies to sleep.

Male chestnut-headed oropendolas raise thready crests at the crescendo of their courtship display. Watercolor over pencil, drawn through scope across two pages of S&B Alpha Series sketchbook. About 11″ x 11″.

Every so often a male will interfere with the weaving session. He and a rival female (update as of this morning: I’m still in research phase on this, but stay tuned) will interfere with a mating session- the two females will holler and joust, hook their feet together and spiral dramatically to earth.

Male chestnut-headed oropendolas looking seductive. Watercolor over pencil, S & B Alpha Series 8 1/2″ x 11″, drawn through scope.

A beat before hitting ground they’ll fly apart to rest, panting through open beaks, dwelling on thoughts of mortality. (Update: it seems to be a case of female/female competition- a second ‘helper’ female hovering nearby may be no more than a nest thief. The helicopter ride down, seen in this light, would be a hardcore game of chicken. Female fitness in a harem no doubt brings out some killer competition, and in this case, a five or six female-to-one male ratio might make things a tad competitive) And reproduction. And for her, a lot more weaving.

Here’s what happened: two females, one weaving, one waiting nearby. A male hops up, flashes his blue eyes and gurgles, whereupon the weaver takes a break and turns upside down, soliciting the male for sex. The second female takes advantage of the lag by hopping on the nest. The male sizes up the situation and decides he has a headache, leaving the unfortunate first female hanging, literally. She folds her wings, musters up her dignity, and rights herself, to see ‘her’ nest taken over by the ‘helper’. Other interactions between the females are more aggressive- the ‘helper’ lands on the poor, upside-down female, they tangle and squawk and spiral downward through the air like a maple samara. Drawn through scope, pencil on Robert Bateman 81/2″ x 11″ sketchbook, spiral-bound.

Happy Friday.

Another Bird Drawing Method That Works- Blind Contours

Crested guan, Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Drawn blind contour method for the guan’s outlines, the details filled in immediately from subsequent looks.  One hand holds binoculars to eyes and the other pushes pencil around paper. No peeking. Pencil on paper.

I’ve always used more than one method for drawings birds. My usual fallback is the mental snapshot freeze-frame: I snag the bird in my mind’s eye, plop it on the page and draw it before it dissolves. Scope drawing is another good skill (you keep both eyes open- one on the bird through the eyepiece and one on the paper, going back and forth while drawing). And now for something a little different: blind contour drawing. This is where you keep both eyes on the bird and sketch freely without looking at the paper. In doing blind contour drawing, I can virtually feel the pencil touching the bird’s feathers. I’ve been working on this technique for several days now, getting some decent results.

Keel billed toucan, Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Drawn blind contour technique through field scope. pencil on paper, 8 1/2″ x 11″

Blind contour drawing might sound slightly loopy, but there’s history and reasoning to back it up. Kimon Nicolaides first proposed the idea in The Natural Way to Draw, and Betty Edwards developed it further in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

Plain colored tanager preening, Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Drawn through the scope, mostly blind contour (I cheated and looked, though). Pencil on 8 1/2″ x 11″ S&B sketchbook paper.

From personal experience I’ve found that my bird drawings, errors and all, have occasionally wiped and replaced the reality of the bird with a contaminated memory. Unfortunately, I often carry that broken image around with me until the next time I get a good look. Then I have to work hard to overcome the difference. In drawing blind, I hold my eyes on the bird instead of the drawing and spend more time learning the bird, getting a better baseline image. The sketch appears to take care of itself, but in practice the eye is unconsciously guiding the hand. It feels odd, but seems to work.

Masked Tityras, blind contour drawing through field scope, Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Watercolor over pencil, S&B sketchbook 8 1/2″ x 11″ Alpha Series paper.

I’m new at this method but find I’m drawing with a lighter touch, making fewer marks, and catching quick gestures and proportions a little more effectively, all without forcing my will on the sketch. Try it yourself. The best moment will come when you look at the paper and think, “who drew that?” In a good way.

Friday Feathers- Tropical Flycatchers

Rusty-margined flycatchers, parent and baby and lots of noise and drama. Watercolor over pencil, drawn through scope, S&B Alpha Series 8 1/2″ x 11″.

There’s a vine-covered tree mass beside the lab building which I’ve tried to tease apart, unsuccessfully, in botanical terms. It’s like untangling cables without using your hands. Two trees side stand by side in the clearing, one identified for me as Leuhea seemanii, the other still a mystery. Vines, lianas and bromeliads web the trees, fighting to smother each other under masses of tendrils, flowers, foliage and fruit. This vegetable war is aided and abetted by birds. I’ve been watching comfortably, sketching from the sidelines.

Common tody flycatchers, no bigger than a bee sting, built a hanging nest of balsa fluff and plant fibers. Shortly after I made this sketch, they moved- built a whole new nest with a better canal view. Watercolor over pencil on S&B Alpha series 8 1/2″ x 11″.

Flycatchers swarm over this plant mass like drosophila buzzing over a banana (of which, by the way, there’s a good patch nearby). They nest, they swoop, they dive into the wild tangle. They sing from the canopy, nest in the midstory and plummet for crawling bugs in the grass. I’ve checked off 9 species of flycatcher moored to this little island of diversity: yellow-crowned tyrannulets, common tody-flycatchers, Panama flycatchers, lesser kiskadees, great kiskadees, rusty-margined flycatchers, social flycatchers, streaked flycatchers, and tropical kingbirds. The plants benefit the flycatchers, but the flycatchers reciprocate, and not just by eating herbivorous insects, either. They’ve helped create their own ideal habitat.

Streaked flycatcher, mouthing off at the rest of the world. Flycatchers are nothing if not talkers. Watercolor over pencil on S&B Alpha Series 8 1/2″ x 11.

From the lab balcony yesterday I watched a social flycatcher in the vine/tree complex. The bird parted its bill and disgorged a shiny white pearl of a seed, which hit the branch and stuck. After a moment of contemplation, the bird opened its bill and let another pearl drop. It rolled off the branch and was caught by a thread of saliva which stretched like a bungee cord from the branch to the seed, halting it in midair. The flycatcher wiped a third seed onto the branch, then a fourth and a fifth. By the time the flycatcher let go its final pearl, eight were glued to the branch or dangling below.

Social flycatcher dropping pearls of wisdom, er, seeds from some plant, possibly a vine or bromeliad. Watercolor over pencil, S&B Alpha series sketchbook.

Flycatchers don’t just catch flies, they eat fruit, too, dispersing seeds around the forest.  A seed attached by a bird’s spit to a bare branch might sprout and become the next fruiting vine or bromeliad. It’s a nice little positive feedback loop, one that nourishes future flycatchers and grows more plants. Sweet deal all around.

Happy Friday.

My Short-Attention-Span Rainforest Theater

A peculiar form of entertainment here on Science Island is going out for a short walk and getting waylaid by natural history. Distraction from head-scratchers to jaw-droppers to warm and fuzzy cuteness will cut you off at the knees, trip you up and make you late for dinner when you walk around in a tropical forest. For starters:

Step by step poison dart frog courtship, sketched from 18 inches away, Barro Colorado Island. Watercolor over pencil, S&B Alpha Series.

Cool things I saw today in the forest:

1. A toucan coughing up a fruit pit.
2. A kiskadee flycatcher coughing up a glittery ball of insect parts.
3. A field researcher swinging a butterfly net and greeting me with a cheery “Another day in paradise!”
4. A hummingbird getting a sponge bath, wriggling around in a clump of wet moss.
5. A red-capped manakin feeding a live scorpion to her baby after banging and softening it with her bill. She stuffed it down the baby’s throat, peered quizzically at the stinger extending from the bill, then pulled the wriggling thing out for a second round of banging. Success.

Angel bees at the golden hive. Violet crowned woodnymph hummingbird in background which was drawn someplace else. Watercolor over pencil on S&B Alpha Series. 81/2″ x 11″

6. A colony of tiny, stingless angel bees, Tetragonisca angustula, with its miniature golden trumpet-nest of wax built on the side of a trailside tree fall. The angels hovered politely, awaiting their turn at the opening, while inches away a devil’s crew of Ectatomma tuberculatum lurked; these are impressive-looking ants that prey on stingless bees, angelic or not.

Calathea leaves rolled up like a set of mailing tubes, red side out. Some kind of sunscreen effect? Does red filter out UV? What’s the deal? Watercolor over pencil on S&B Alpha Series, 8 1/2″ x 11″

It’s a high-end distraction fun-house out here, no question. The real question is: how do you focus on anything when you need to buckle down, like drawing, or hiking, or thinking. It’s not easy. Especially when monkeys draw nigh and toucan”kronk” from trees above. More on that some other time. I’m a little distracted right now.

Balsa seed pods look like fluffy teddy bears before they split lengthwise and open wide like alien clawed hands holding evil red seeds.

Friday Feathers- slaty-tailed trogons, masked tityras, and one big, beautiful fly

Under the new tin roof of the visitor center (historically the Smithsonian’s Barro Colorado Island dining hall, back in the day when lady and gentlemen scientists came in from the field and dressed for dinner every night in their best white tropical-weight worsteds)  is a sprinkler system, pipes painted red. Trogons are sedentary birds and he took his job seriously and didn’t mind me at all, being as how I was sedentary too, sketchbook on knee. 1 hour pose (one of two sketches), watercolor over pencil, 8 1/2″ x 11″ Stillman & Birn Alpha Series.

First day out of the box on the island and we had birds, thunderstorms, and a gorgeous huge tropical fly caught by researchers (and released unharmed). The birds were very cool but the bugs, oh my, the bugs.

Masked tityras, roving bandits of the canopy…actually, they were snooping around a fruiting fig. I plan to snoop around there  myself. From 5 to 25 second poses, watercolor over pencil on S&B Alpha Series 8 1/2″ x 11″

And now, a fly. Turn up your sound if you enjoy loud buzzing fly noises, turn it down if you don’t.

Happy Friday.

(update: a biologist here gave me the name and the lowdown on the fly. It’s called Pantaphthalmus chuni, aka, neotropical timber fly. Has no functional mouthparts, does not bite- or eat. Adults exist solely to reproduce. And so you all know, it’s also the world’s largest fly. Really.)