I’ve noticed that some birds show up alone at my backyard feeding station while others come in a small flock. Some birds will forage on the ground under the feeder only, some only on the feeder and some will do both. In this picture I’ve compared some differences between the Baltimore Orioles and the Northern Cardinals that visit each day.

Dear very good teacher, themes in nature?   A true story Last week I was visiting my 94 year old mother in law for her birthday in Orlando Florida. I went for a walk on a Sunday (9 AM, bright cool day, recent cold front, blue sky, T 60 or so) morning in the wetlands, drainage area, canal system which reflects close to what would have been in Florida prior to development. Walking slowly I noticed something swimming in the water. Initially I thought it was a muskrat. It eventually came out of the water and I could see it had a small fish in its mouth. It ate that one and caught another, about 12 inches long. This attracted a great blue heron who immediately came over and followed the otter around, from one pond to the next, fishing in the shallow waters of the pond-culvert system. I could see the Heron catch some small fish as they swam into the shallow water to escape the swimming otter in the deeper water. It even caught a baby alligator and carried it around for a while. As the otter would move, so would the otter. When the otter brought a fairly large fish (24 or 30 "long) to the bank to eat, the heron came out and stood watching about 5 feet way. The otter showed no interest in the otter and the heron appeared relaxed but always watching the heron. I have more to tell, but long enough.  All of this took place a few hundred yards from a 5 thousand home development.  People walking in this area are common. The otter and heron both saw me, in fact the otter came over to visit me, snarled, showed his teeth and kept swimming. Several people walked by me, took no noticed, even if I pointed. I noticed if I had a low profile, I was ignored by the birds, otter, even by the people. This wet land is connected to several thousand acres of connecting waterways intertwined between suburban developments.  I invite the reader to  address the themes.  Enjoying the course, Lou  PS, I have seen several otters in the past in Maine, all for a split second,never observed one for 45 minutes or more.

I went to Sierpe with The Birding Club of Costa Rica. We went to a farm where king vultures nest. Usually, king vultures are only seen soaring high in the sky, so it was a privilege to see them up close. There was an adult perched in a tree, and a juvenile down on the ground with some black vultures. They were eating a pig head the farmer had put out for them. While this is a working farm, allowing tourists to come and observe the vultures and have a meal boosts the farm's income. We spent a long time observing the juvenile's behavior. He, or she, was much larger than the black vultures (I looked it up: 32 inches vs. 25 inches). The king vulture repeatedly spread its wings over the food in an attempt to keep the black vultures at bay. The king seemed to be getting more of the snack than the black vultures. Many questions came to mind. Why is the juvenile black, while the adults are mostly white? When does the plumage change? When does the juvenile grow the orange lumps on the beak that the adults have? Why do king vultures have smooth heads while black vultures have bumpy heads? Why is the king vulture's beak so much thicker and stronger looking than the black vultures? Is it a good thing that the farmer is feeding them? Were we disturbing them? (It did not appear so. We were far enough away that we needed binoculars to really see the details. I took photos and drew this scene from a photo.) Will I every really understand chiaroscuro and be able to express it in my drawings?

My friend Roxanne and I are always trying to learn from what we see and ask ourselves questions about forms and functions.  I’ve been focusing a lot on lichen lately, and have begun to observe the different ways the lichen reproduce.  Some use apothecia through which they produce and release spores, some use soredia (crumbly-looking bundles of algae and fungus cells that they shed – which then go on to form another lichen), some use isidia (structures that look like eyelashes on the edges of the lichen)… and some use a combination of those structures. I used to think of lichen as fairly “commonplace” somewhat “simple” structures, but observation has shown me how complex and varied they are.  I’ve been using a macro attachment for my cellphone to observe some of the deeper details and structures of lichen.  Here’s an example of what Bark Rim Lichen, Lecanora chlarotera looks like to the naked eye and to the macro attachment: To the naked eye,the lichen looks like white-wash on the bark.  But using the macro attachment, I was able to observe the apothecia (cup-like structures used for spore formation) all over the lichen's surface.  

I always considered myself an observant person but now I'm observing in more ways.  I notice a change or something different that stands out.  I have more questions!   I've been a birder but now I'm noticing the trail in a different perspective.  I see trees are all different colors (winter) of brown and gray.  How the green of pine trees really stands out and how a larger pine is a much darker green.  The bottom of a tree is dark gray and then lightens as it reaches the sky with a pale gray.  Then the sun comes out and everything changes!  Theres a shadow of branches.  The sky appears darker in the distance above the trees but straight up it is a bright carolina blue!

I've been setting up bird feeding areas around my yard, we have a very large lot in rural NY and we have a lot of birds coming to my feeders.  Alas, the squirrels have located my bird diner and have invited themselves to come and partake.  I thought that if I also provided them with their own feeders they would narrow their choices to their own table.  I'm including an unfinished sketch I started a couple days ago.

I'm a beginning eBirder as I take this Nature Journaling course. One thing that I've observed is that the Black-throated sparrows here have a lot of brown on them. From the on-line photos it appears the adult males are primarily gray. Maybe I'm only noting juveniles, but even the bigger, more dominant birds have brown around their necks and onto the back. They flit around quickly and are very shy so I haven't gotten close enough to document with either my cell phone or a drawing, but I hope to - so I can figure out exactly what it is I'm seeing.

I went back to a sketch of skunk cabbage that I had observed on 12/31/19. This is the first plant to come up in our wood but the sighting was earlier than usual. I hypothesize that it came up early due to a mild winter, or is it evidence of the bigger issue of climate  change? The warm temperatures may make it easier for the plant to sprout because it doesn’t need to expend energy to melt snow around it (which I have observed previously). This raised questions: is climate change shifting growth patterns? How does the plant melt snow around it and will it grow faster if it doesn’t need to do that?

We put out apples for the deer and two deer show up on a regular basis. One is reddish coloured and the other has lots of black . The reddish one allows comes first. The darker one waits until the other finishes and moves away before approaching the apples.  I wonder if the reddish deer is dominant so it eats first and decides when it is safe to eat and when it is time to leave. I have heard that darker deer live in swampy areas but these two are travelling together so why is one so much darker. Is it younger?

The squirrels chase each other a lot this time of year. Is it territorial or breeding season? Are they chasing each other away from their food stores that they were furiously digging in the fall?

Noticing change: I was observing these birds the last four days. This is the biggest group I have ever seen. They come in the afternoon and perched in a tall bougainvillea with pink flowers. Why came so many birds this year? Are they looking for food or a place to nest? Why do the come in the afternoon (at 4:00pm) and perch on this particular plant? Maybe because it is fresher late in the afternoon?  I did a little research and found out that they eat seeds, grains and insects, but they do not come to my garden looking for insects.

I observed out my kitchen window this morning as it was much too cold to sit outside.  It was a balmy 9F with a strong wind.  I am continually amazed at the resourcefulness and resilience of birds like Chickadees, Titmice, Juncos and Sparrows during these arctic blasts.  They are so small and their down and contour feathers do not seem enough to keep them from freezing on days like today.  Yet they continue to fly, grab seeds, look around tree trunks and wood piles for overwintering insects.  A few young male turkeys arrived this morning and I had questions about why-we have not seen any turkeys since early summer 2019.  

• 

 

This is a journal entry from a day at the Ruby Lake Wildlife Refuge in Nevada.  I've had many "firsts" in terms of bird sightings here and today presented another first in the wild.  I observed a large group of Trumpeter Swans; observed several groups in flight and depicted these two from a picture that showed the flight pattern I observed.

We have a drainage area near our house where water runs after rains.  This year we have had much more rain than normal.  White-tailed deer now use the area as a waterhole.  I wonder where they will go when the drainage area dries up?  Will the amount of rainfall we received this past year continue in our area as part of the warmer weather pattern we have had the past decade or more?  If so, how does this drainage area affect other wildlife around it? I did not create a journal page, but I did sit outside in the mornings and painted two deer.

I started this part of the course in early December and the most remarkable thing I had noticed recently in nature near me was the large number of Long-Tailed Ducks that had arrived on Lake Ontario in mid-November. When I noticed this, I also noted that the many, many Double-crested Cormorants that nest and fish on the lake near Burlington were mostly all gone. Why? If Long-Tailed Ducks and other fishing ducks can fish in the winter, why can't cormorants? The first image that popped into my mind was of a cormorant on a rock or tree stump near water with wings outstretched. So my first possible explanation is that cormorants cannot survive when air temperature is below freezing, even though there is open water for fishing, because they don't fully waterproof their wings with preening oil like ducks do. When they stretch out their wings, they are drying them. Then I wondered how the cormorants that lived in Vancouver, British Columbia dried their wings when it rained for 3 or more days in a row in the winter. I suppose wet wings aren't a problem if the birds don't need to fly and as long as the temperature is above freezing. I also thought about what Double-crested Cormorants and Long-Tailed Ducks do when they are not fishing. Long-Tailed Ducks spend all their time on water, even when sleeping, whereas cormorants stand or sit on shores or perch in trees. This might affect the two species wintering location choices. While doing a bit of research on cormorants, I learned that they are not considered waterfowl. Waterfowl, like ducks and geese, are in the Galloanseres clade but cormorants are in a sub-clade of Neoaves called Aequonirthes, or "core waterbirds", along with Penguins, Tubenoses, Pelicans, Storks and Loons. Furthermore, recent phylogenetic research suggests that cormorants belong in a family called Suliformes rather that in Pelecaniformes.

I was observing and drawing on my front porch after a couple days of rain. Birds kept visiting the puddles to drink and a few of them were taking a bath! Pretty cool. I also watched a Black Phoebe catching insects.

On a kind of rainy week I made observations on how a bean pod dried, twisted, and changed over 4 days time; then observed some shells I had had on my desk  and wondered how their varied forms contributed to their function in their environment. Also I continued to work on light and shadow. My writing is messy, and I have difficulty integrating it on the page with the drawings in a useful and illustrative way. Using a pen seems to help a bit.

I thought this was an interesting example of both patterns (rings of Purple Tooth shelf mushrooms), and also energy flow of decomposition.  The mushrooms had obviously been on the wood for a long time.

I decided to do some observations of the pattern on the side of a mountain. All along one face, the erosion of the loose shale rock creates a vertical pattern. I was struggling trying to draw it with pencil and was not happy with how it was turning out. I finally decided to bust out my watercolors for the first time! I was really pleased with the way that I could show the light and shadow of the pattern with watercolor.

I looked for patterns in the river sediments in gravel bars.