The photo for this drawing came from the “Wildlife Fact File.” I am tickled by the description of this bird as “a bold pirate that harasses other birds in breathtaking aerial chases.” He gets his name because he steals almost all of his food. He forces other birds to drop their prey, which he then catches midair. He doesn’t do any of his own hunting. yar.

This has to be one of the cutest owls on the planet. They are little and round like fat toads. And they live in the ground, in the abandoned holes of other burrowing creatures.

Seasonally, burrowing owls make their homes in the Bay Area. They are a protected species, so when they come to the Berkeley marina, the groundspeople put up fences to keep visitors from disturbing them. I’ve never seen one in person, because they are very shy. But I’d like to see them. Aren’t they cute?

Shiny little feathers on a bright little bird.

I haven’t done many birds in color. But I really like this one.

Egrets are one of my favorite birds. Their too-long necks and legs make them simultaneously graceful and awkward.

I mean, look at that neck, coiled like a snake – it’s ridiculous. It reminds me of that moment in Alice in Wonderland where Alice eats a bit of mushroom, and, instead of growing all at once (like she did with the bottle), only her neck grows. Long and snakey, she winds up with her head in the trees scaring a family of birds.

That’s two Alice in Wonderland posts in a row. I sense a thread.

I give you the Common Eider duck, from which we get eider down, the softest, most highly-praised feather-bed and pillow-making material in the world. 

In my early years, our family had an Apple IIC (with the glowing green screen and 4-inch floppy disks…), on which we played the Alice in Wonderland Adventure Game. I loved that game. It was the only game I played from start to finish multiple times. And in those early years, we played computer games as a family, taking turns operating the controls. The game included this riddle:

How do you get down off a train? You don’t. You get down off a —-.

For the longest time, we got stuck at this stupid riddle. We tried every family friendly four letter word we could think of… until, in frustration, we put in “fuck.” Almost instantly, we realized that the correct answer was only one letter off.

You don’t get down off a train. You get down off a duck.

The weekend of February 19th, Rick and I drove down to LA to visit his Grandma Polly. She was very weak from a series of infections, and we wanted to give her our love. Luckily, by the time we got there, she was feeling well enough to be her fiesty old self again. So we were relieved.

I drew this bird at Mom and Mark’s house. Mom (Laura) tried her hand with my marker set, too. She drew a carrion crow that I wish I had scanned before she threw it away. That lady has natural talent, and I’d love to see more out of her.

Grandma Polly, like my Grandma Claire, is a landscape painter. Talented parentage all around.

Ok, I know that I am to blame for my own bitterness here. I should have said “no” up front. I should have made it clear that my birds were too precious to me. And yet, I feel pretty justified in feeling cheated in this exchange.

Yes, that is an envelope: torn, stapled, taped back together and then scribbled on with pen and marker. The final clincher? When I came to do the exchange, he said, “Oh, I uh, just have to get it out of my bag… I’ll come get you at your desk.” I am guessing after all that earnest cajoling he completely forgot.

Um, thanks?

FOOTNOTE:
For Christmas, this same guy gave me a hand-drawn card with Santa stuck in a chimney. It was cute, and funny, and obviously took time and forethought. And I love it. I treasure it. It’s going to make me a mint when he becomes a famous artist (or children’s book illustrator) one day. Why couldn’t the drawing exchange item be of the same caliber? And why was I too chicken shit to mention it to him? sigh.

Black woodpecker on a pink tree. hrm.

I must confess, I suck at backgrounds. It’s not that I can’t do them. I just don’t. I lose interest. I don’t care. It can’t hold my attention once the star is in place. Using old drawings as a base for this project solves that problem for the most part. But when you’re drawing a bird on a tree, it is really hard to get around that whole “tree” thing. I just gave up and let it be pink.

oh well. He’s a bird in a land made of candy. mmmm…. candy….

This is a type of toucan with a black and white beak.

I didn’t want to draw the side view of the toco toucan because that bird is so well known – I mean, the toco is the Fruit Loops bird. It is a bizarre looking bird, and it would be hard to draw without reverting to just drawing a cartoon (and singing the stupid jingle. Yes, TV has me that well trained. Argh). That’s why I chose this toucan relative instead. I have no preconceived notions about Aracaris.

And I like the inquisitive look on this guy’s face.