Ancient Murrelet

The Ancient Murrelet is another small North Pacific auk, of blackbird size. The white flecks and grey mantle apparently gave it the ‘ancient’ on its name, reminiscent of al elderly person’s shawl. This species undergoes a East-West migration. Individuals breeding on the west coast of north America winter in areas around Japan. It has a peculiar natural history for an auk: males ‘sing’ at night from tree branches to attract partner to nest site, a burrow under a tree or shrub. It usually rears two young, which are precocial and are not fed at the nest by the parents, instead led by parents to water 1-3 days after hatching, at night, and reared there until they are fully grown. I’ve decided to draw murrelets on water, as they spend so little time on land. There is a record of ancient murrelet in the UK, apparently the same individual visited Lundy three years in a row.

Spectacled Guillemot

The Spectacled Guillemot is a close relative of the Black Guillemot. It inhabits waters of the northwestern Pacific Ocean, from the Russian Sea of Okhotsk and Kuril Islands, through to the Northern islands of Japan and Korean Peninsula. A medium-sized auk, with distinctive while ‘spectacles’ and bright red feet and inside of the mouth.

Rook on stubble

 

 

I love corvids, and it is hard not to love Rooks: full of personality, almost comical looks – with their long trousers and pointed head – and constant coarse calls. I sketched this one this evening, using oil and pencil settings with a limited colour palette in my Wacom tablet.

Grey wagtail

The end of september and early october is the easiest time of the year to come across a Grey Wagtail in my area. Today we encountered this one feeding by the side of an outdoor swimming pool used for kayak training in the middle of the city. They are very fond of water, their little sprints to catch insects by the edge of the water line with their long tails bobbing up and down constantly, and their intensely brimstone yellow undertail coverts, contrasting with the paler belly makes them easy to identify.

Crow mobbing Herring Gull

From my office, I hear a crow calling. I look out of the window and I just glimpse a Carrion Crow chasing a Herring Gull. Crows have a nest nearby, and are prone to defend the area around the nest from potential chick predators. The action happened too fast for me to grab my camera, so I drew this sketch to remember the event.

 

Crow mobbing Kestrel

The alarm call of the crow, a rattling ‘krrrrr’, often alerts me of the presence of birds of prey. On one such occasions, a crow mobbed a kestrel over the garden, and I managed to get a very poor photo. I drew the scene in pencil based on a photograph.

Goldcrest

This tiny, ever moving bird is a challenge to photograph. It is very acrobatic, climbs up tree trunks, hangs upside down from think branches, or feeds hovering in front of conifer branch tips. An early painting in the tablet, from a couple of years ago.

Barn Owl hunting

I treasure my encounters with Barn Owls. I used to dissect their pellets to find out what they ate, but watching them was unusual. Lately, I have enjoyed some recent close encounters with these birds in Tophill Low. A pencil and watercolour sketch.

Bullfinch

The bullfinches in Humber Bridge Country park are used to people topping up the bird feeders to watch them up close. They do not disappoint. In our last visit up to three males and two females fed on sunflower seeds, barely a couple of meter away from us. I was quite pleased with the way the bullfinch eye came out in the painting.

Black-headed Gull displaying

After spending their white headed winters feeding on fields or scavenging in towns and parks, Black-headed Gulls moult into their dark chocolate heads, with a contrasting white rings around March time. They move to their nesting grounds where there is much posturing, displaying and screechy calling. The sketch shows the ‘forward posture’ adopted when threatening an opponent, but also when pairs display to each other.