The Fisher and the Goshawk

5:15 is when the day begins now. The first bird song has been the Eastern phoebe; it’s now being joined by a robin. That’s the early bird who gets the worm- phoebes prefer airborne foodstuff. The morning chorus is being overlaid this dawn with a soundtrack of pattering rain and car tires hissing on wet highway. The coffee is hot. Good morning.

I have a pleasing note of eco-news today. Environmental stories in general have not been a big source of joy lately so I’m happy to pass along this personal observation. There is still a wildness in the world.

Petersham is a lovely New England small town- there’s a country store (with great sandwiches), a post office, a Commons with a pond, meadow, and a bandstand; tall-steepled churches on Main Street ring the hours. It is at the eastern edge of the Quabbin Reservoir, the largest source of fresh water in Massachusetts and the source of what Bostonians can enjoy straight from the tap. The considerable watershed is well-protected and heavily forested, and there are a great deal of fine forests, rivers, lakes and reserves throughout the region. I’ve been tremendously impressed with the farsightedness of public and private conservation organizations which preserve this land and make it so easily accessible to hikers, campers, paddlers, and anyone else who wants to get out of their cars for some low-impact land-use. There are trailheads leading off from roads and highways everywhere. I keep my hiking boots handy.

There’s a nature preserve not five minutes from here, and once you hit the trail, you’re in another world. Cross a little bridge over a wild stream, stroll past the great meadow and the beaver pond, and the trees begin to grow bigger and older and less tame. Moss creeps up and over everything: fallen logs and boulders big as motor homes are softened by deep-pile green carpet. Fiddle-heads (fern sprouts) are rising from the leaf-litter like cobras, dead snags are contorted and patinaed by age, and in the gloomy hush you find yourself looking over your shoulder for bears or leprechauns. There’s enchantment in these woods.

The Northern goshawk is a symbol of wildness and ferocity; Attila the Hun wore the image of a goshawk on his helmet. I’ve been lucky enough to see one maybe three times in my life. And big mustelids are equally fierce and wild. Both species need good habitat, large areas of mature forest and good prey availability.

The mossy glade I chose to draw in last week turned out to be a fine place for goshawks. An adult bird perched in a white pine at the edge of the opening made the forest ring with loud hacking cries. I was properly awed. The glade was also a fine place for other wildlife, as I discovered.

If you sit very quietly sketching or painting, you’d be surprised what doesn’t see you first. A scrabbling sound caused me to look up to see a large, furry black mammal climbing a snag 60 feet away. It had long bushy tail, a wedge-shaped head, large paws and a golden wash across the shoulders. It was on the far side of the trunk and had it’s paws wrapped more than halfway around it (I went back and measured that trunk: it was a good 16″ thick). I reached for my camera when it saw me, wherupon it slid backwards and dropped to the ground, hitting the moss with a muffled thud. It ran like hell and was gone like a ghost. I’d just seen my first Fisher.

How rare are these two creatures of the northern woods? They are not common. Fishers are declining in the Southern and Pacific regions of the United States, mostly due to logging and other habitat loss, but here in the Northeast, they are increasing, as are goshawks. The Northeastern forest is renewing itself; and as forest habitat recovers, so do the goshawk and the fisher. I hope to see them again- yet another incentive for me to go sit quietly in the woods with a sketchbook and a paint kit. Good morning, indeed.

Keeping My Balance

I want to say thank you to everyone who wrote with such kind, warm words about Cody. To those who shared their own stories of losing their most treasured canine companion, my heartfelt gratitude and sympathy goes out to you.

The sea is a powerful restorative, and the sea in winter is bleak and beautiful all at once. With my good friend Cindy, we shivered and walked and drew and photographed, looked at river otter tracks in the sand, watched eiders ride the chop and harriers chase red-tails. There were a couple of near-rarities: a northern shrike (a life bird for me) and a Eurasian wigeon. We stayed at the cozy 1705-built Charlotte Inn in Edgartown (thank you Gery!), we had pots of hot tea fireside in a small pub. We explored the old cemetary (and spent a few moments contemplating John Belushi’s final resting place), we dined (fresh oysters for me, of course) while an Irish music trio played wondrous tunes and rowdy patrons clapped and threw peanut shells on the floor.

Drawing is another restorative. Nothing takes you outside of yourself and reconnects you with the world so well. It’s intimate, meditative, fascinating. Clear your mind if you want to do it well. Draw anything and everything. Make it your own.

A common eider chugs forward in an outer Chappaquiddick seachannel like a passenger ferry loaded up with cement trucks.

We watched this pair of breeding-plumaged Long-tailed ducks working a rip current just past the breakers nearest the shore where we sat in the sand. Like a conveyor belt that carried them backward as they dove and surfaced, when they reached the back end of the ride they would fly forward to begin again. Over and over, they flew forward and were pulled backwards, diving and feeding on whatever else was caught in the current. The male duck’s central tail feathers are long soft streamers rather than stiff spikes like those of the pintail duck.

This northern shrike made an appearance in the red cedars of Lobsterville, where unsuspecting song sparrows actually flew in to join it (probably thinking it was a fat mockingbird) and nearly got nabbed. The shrike, a.k.a. butcherbird, is a predatory songbird (!!) and famously impales its prey on thorns and barbed wire fences. I’ve never heard its song but Cindy says it’s quite beautiful. Imagine that.

Warming up by the fire with hot tea and laughter.

The cliffs below the lighthouse were assorted colors of clay, an artist’s palette of warm and cool.

a moment of peace and solitude, beauty and otter tracks.

Black Swans and The Impact of the Unexpected

This little painting is my way of working out the kinks, technically and otherwise, in a larger painting that’s going to a paying customer (the commissioner). It’s where I can relax and have fun and make mistakes with reckless abandon. And sometimes the mistakes turn out to be in the right direction. Sometimes it’s a good idea not to overthink it too much. I repeat again what Gustave Moreau said, Art does not live by will alone; everything depends on docile submission to the inrush of the unconcious. I’m not sure how much absinthe he’d had by then, but I believe he’s right, up to a point. At some point the conscious mind should intervene and give a bit of direction. Or should it? Discuss among yourselves. See here for further enlightening instruction, but come right back.

So there I was, fussing and tightening up all those gray-edged black feathers (it’s really a beautiful pattern, but after awhile it was all you saw). My forest was vanishing under all the trees, the overall form (and that nice negative shape) was getting buried in detail. I suddenly saw this, grabbed a fat flat and started scooping darks at random off the palette. Big blobs of raw umber, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and small swipes of light gray mixes that got in the way of the brush ended up on the swan. My purpose was to go back to the negative shape and try again, but something unexpected happened. The paint landed in a flurry of brushwork, unintended and unconscious, but when I stepped back the swan form had blossomed into positive shape. Nice edges, interesting sweeps of shape, interplays of warm and cool. I couldn’t have planned it better. And so I washed out the brushes, turned off the light, and went to make dinner. I know when one shouldn’t intervene with a good session of submission to the inrush of the unconscious.

The Black Swan Theory strikes again!

Speaking of highly conscious minds, Bill of the Birds has given me a mention on his very excellent blog. As Editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest, he’s been an enthusiastic supporter and celebrator (is someone who celebrates called a celebrity?) of everything-bird-and-bird-art-related, including bird artists. BWD is one of the very few magazines today using commissioned illustrations. They use plenty of great photos, but every cover is a work of art, and there’s plenty of fine art between the covers. Oh, and Bill’s got a podcast now, filled with entertaining interviews and discussions with top birders. Yay, Bill and Bird Watcher’s Digest!