birdspot

With some (amazing) support and a little bit of luck, in a week I will begin my last big push across the country and back. From mid-September through to November 1, I will transect as much of the fall bird migration as I can, making a beeline across the middle of our country to maximize a few previously missed opportunities (e.g. the Rocky Mountains), then hopefully experience some of my first-ever Midwest shorebird migration, and then lastly wind my way up the East Coast: Cape May, then onto NYC and New England. I forewent (is that a legitimate word?) Spring migration in order to bird Belize and Costa Rica (tiny fiddles of sympathy, I know), and this hurt my year totals for the ABA Lower 48 from a Big Year standpoint. However, as I repeat over and over, I am doing a different sort of Big Year: one with fewer borders, one in which I am trying to learn about birds on a deeper level, one in which I am trying to make drawings as I go along. My goals have been pretty steady this year: I have seen 492 species in the lower 48 states, and 875 in the “world”; I would like to blow past 500 ABA for the year. I suppose this proves that I have not entirely succeeded in killing off my inner obsessive lister!

Image: Snowy Plover sketches

On a serious note, I need to scrape up some change to get my rear back to the East Coast for fall migration, so for a limited time I will be offering T-shirts and mugs of selected drawings. CHECK IT OUT HERE.

Or Histrionicus histrionicus, whichever you prefer.

Harlequin Duck (Histrionicus histrionicus), digital sketch

East Coast, West Coast. The other night I fell asleep to a Western Screech-Owl calling softly out my window. Today I am sketching an Eastern Screech-Owl. I drew a Western Screech a couple of years ago in ink. I couldn’t work in color then. Now, in my new invisible girl state, a person without a home and one rapidly losing an identity, I throw colors around on a screen. Subtle colors, in this case. Where on earth will I settle into at the end of this year? Have you ever been without a definite plan, cut loose?

Above: Eastern Screech-Owl, digital sketch.
Below: Western Screech-Owl, ink on paper.