Anita

My favorite nature writers are:  Kelly Brenner, author of Nature Obscura, because I love her endlessly curious and interested approach to nature; Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home, Nature's Best Hope, and The Nature of Oaks, for inspiring me to want to bring native habitats back into privately owned spaces; and Ed Yong, author of An Immense World, for creating in me a desire to understand the umwelt, or sensory experience, of the wildlife I encounter.  I was also inspired by The Yellow Jacket poem above to write a short poem about a Dark-Eyed Junco I encountered on a forest trail.

1.  I am still not confident in completing the field sketching in the field, so I've been using my backyard where I can have a chair and a table.  Otherwise I have to leave painting to an indoor activity.  2. I've been trying to still notice as I draw, like the color of new growth even though the majority of the leaves in the Winterberry Holly are falling off and that is a single berry that was produced.  I need to get better about creating hypotheses for my observations. 3.  I tried some of the "dry brushing" on the bark, but I had to use a lot of layers.

Activity 1:  I work for a statewide Audubon society, so birds matter to me because they are one of the most visible groups of wildlife and also offer great ambassador species to rally people to conservation efforts.  They're also so much fun to watch.  Activity 2: I try to follow all 7 actions to help birds, and I've also started living a more vegan lifestyle to preserve bird habitat.  I just started gardening this year, and am hoping to expand my native garden next year to include more options for birds, like blueberry bushes. Activity 4:  I really want to take a dedicated bird-cation to South America and also take the Hummingbird course offered by Bird Academy.  Since I live in a very small state, there aren't a lot of local resources about how to engage in community science through home actions, so I'm also working on a "guidebook" for people to create their own wildlife areas locally.

On a still subject measuring proportions worked very well.  I always try to capture photos of my subject because I know I'm not quick enough to get all of the details before they move, so I started small.  I think the proportions of this pine cone were helped with the measuring trick.

Activity 3:  I checked out the birds at a small pond by my place of employment.  There have been four separate sandpiper species found there, which blew me away.  I never would've guessed that these birds would be found at such a small pond in an urban area, I imagined that sandpipers would want large marshy muddy places to roam.  Listening to their calls was interesting too.  The Pectoral Sandpiper makes a deep whirring sound that I wouldn't have even credited to a bird had I heard it previously.

This was an interesting exercise, and really made me think about why two items are similar and yet different.  Both of these digger wasps were feeding on the same patch of mountain mint on different days, and it was amazing to see the size and coloration differences, making me wonder why certain adaptations are needed in a species and not in another.  For example, the Great Black Digger Wasp was so much larger than all the other wasps, bees, and moths at the patch that it was instantly recognizable from my periphery when it flew in.

For activity 1, my favorite bird was the Tropicbird. Even though this is the Red-tailed, it reminds me of the "Longtail," the White-Tailed Tropicbird from my recent trip to Bermuda.  I was there as the young were fledging and it was magical to watch the groups of three flying around but never landing. For activity 2, I am surprised how many bird species I see given that I live in a fairly urban environment.  We have Ruby-throated hummingbirds (which are quickly becoming my favorite), wild turkeys, Red-tailed Hawks, and a myriad of seed eating birds. For activity 3, my favorites are the Ruby-throated hummingbird because they move unlike any other birds around my neighborhood, the Red-bellied Woodpecker who has nested in our backyard this year and we've affectionately named Spencer; and the Dark eyed Junco, which is just adorable in the winter.  We don't have a lot of species in the winter, and this one comes south from Canada and hangs out in the snow.

This is my first year gardening so I don't think I have anything "new" yet, but I've counted 28 species of birds so far in my backyard, and I hope to get a lot of new ones by next year.  I'm also hoping to pull out more and more lawn space each year to make room for attractive landscaping with a purpose.

I agree with some of challenges mentioned by others:  I had no idea how to identify what I had as native, non-native, or invasive.  It turns out one of the bushes I have is a non-native Quince shrub, but it's been there for 40 years and is well behaved and doesn't spread.  It also feeds and shelters several species of bird and bee.  Another plant I found was an invasive burning bush, so the challenge will be safely removing it without dispersing seeds.  Locating your local cooperative extension or Master Gardeners is a real help; they're often very willing to take a look at what you have and help you plan.  I think I have a lot of good layers of plants, but one challenge I have is ground cover.  I can't do large areas or my dog will just run through it like it's grass, so I think I'm going to have to intersperse it with higher plantings to discourage a "lawn" like appearance for her.

I currently have over ten very mature trees around my property, including Birch and Oaks.  However, because of this there is little sunlight in the backyard, so I'm working to turn an area next to the house in the front yard into a garden full of perennials, vines, and smaller shrubs to support not only birds but also pollinators.  I have several bird feeders right now that bring in Northern Cardinals, Black-capped Chickadees, White and Red-breasted Nuthatch, Woodpeckers, and both Chipping and White-throated Sparrows.  Eventually I'm wanting to completely eliminate my bird feeders and instead provide them with "real" food in the form of native plants and insects.  I just created a large brush pile too, so hopefully that will provide some habitat for various species.