birdspot

And she’s off! I’m headed to Costa Rica tonight, to meet my friend Andrew and to go look for a few tasty birds. I need to make drawings and get reference photos for a certain project, and he is co-authoring what looks to be a phenomenal new book… so be assured that this is a very serious work trip (insert a winky here, I hate how emoticons look in print so I will refrain). I’ll try to post photos and sketches as I go along; no promises on internet access as I get massages and eat myself stupid at lodges I mean spend 16 hours a day scouring the rain forest. These trips are usually pretty grueling, in reality. More winks, and smiley faces.

Happily ensconced with family on the high plains of Colorado, I am also happily thinking of warmer climes and further travels. I decorated the endpapers of my next sketchbook in preparation for a trip to Costa Rica this January. It seems my (Not a) Big Year has turned into a strange new Big Life. The illustrations here were a little challenging: the endpapers on a Moleskine sketchbook are not an easy match for water-based media!

Sketchbook 2012, endpaper. From left to right: Green Violetear, Keel-billed Toucan, and Turquoise-browed Motmot (with separated tail). Watercolor, 3.5 x 11″ open.

On July 23, I was on a boat. I like boats. I particularly like the kinds of birds you see while on boats. I also particularly like the kinds of birders who like being on boats and who like the kinds of birds you see while on boats (recently mentioned exceptions notwithstanding).

This particular boat was the Condor Express out of Santa Barbara, and the trip was great for diversity, if not for Pterodroma species (no puling from me, however, I saw over 20 year birds over the course of 14 hours). Did you know that “petrel” is probably derived from “St. Peter”? We like to think about the fine points of flight differences between shearwaters and gadfly petrels (and very much enjoy the ensuing heart murmur/attack when a bird has arced up over the waves in a gadfly fashion), but somehow I had not connected the general word petrel with the idea of walking on water. Sort of like how I had not connected Kanga and Roo until about the age of 25: we all have our moments of brilliance, I guess.

The bird of the day (after the more legitimate excitements of a Laysan Albatross, 2 Red-billed Tropicbirds, a Manx Shearwater, etc.) ended up being this stupid tern. (more…)

Blackburnian Warblers sketch, second sitting.