The Life of a Painter

Owls and an Orca

2012-01-27T17:53:00.000-08:00

I have to take a short break from my posts about South Africa to catch up on some happenings closer to home. This afternoon I learned about a Saw-whet Owl that was roosting in someone's yard near the Russian Orthodox Church nearby.
I got permissian to observe the owl from the comfort of the kind host's kitchen. Good thing, because the outside temperature was -5f. This is the first Saw-whet that I have been able to photograph. It never reacted to the curious Red Squirrel.

This is actually only the second Saw-whet that I have seen, although I have heard them calling a number of times.

It never opened it's eyes more than this brief, one-eyed peek. I was very happy to be able to see and photograph such a cute little thing.

This is my latest painting of a Great Gray Owl, 8x10".

A detail of the painting. Right now there are about four Great Gray Owls being seen across town. I would like to go try for photos of them but it has been so blasted cold that I dont want to trudge around in the big freeze, looking for them.

This is my latest t-shirt design for Threadless. Go to, http://Threadless.com/sharedesign/397524/Orca_Shirt.

Back to Africa

2012-01-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

Two years ago I went to South Africa for a month with my old, and I do mean OLD, friend Tom. I did a series of nine blog posts about that trip. The truth is that I have been to some of the earth's greatest destinations before South Africa, and none of them hold a candle to Africa. It deserves a more detailed trip report.
So I have decided to take a more liesurely armchair visit to South Africa, and include some of the many good photos that did'nt make it into the first series of posts. I'll use excerpts from my trip journal to describe what we saw.

" There were a lot of African Masked Weavers, mostly males building nests, and displaying with a lot of wing shaking."
I flew into Johannesburg just after dark and checked into Mufasa Backpackers Lodge in the suburb of Benoni, where Tom was already checked in . Early the next morning Tom and I birded the grounds of the lodge and the surrounding neighborhood. We were very impressed by the abundance of birdlife.

"There was a Hoopoe plucking insects out of the grass on the front lawn. Juan, (the lodge owner) said that Hoopoes nested in a tree cavity next to the lodge's swimming pool."

"There was a large, beautiful Speckled Pigeon on the roof of a house across the street."

"I was surprised to see Common Mynas." Common Mynas are native to Southeast Asia, but have been introduced to several other parts of the world. To me they behave like Magpies, loud, inquisitive, and adaptable.

"There were lots of Red Bishops, (mostly males) in and near a Sorgum field across the street."

"Next came the striking, Cape Sparrow."

"An unexpected delight was a group of Speckled Mousebirds who climbed to the top of a tree when the sun came out. They tend to hang on to branches rather than perch upright."

"We had to deal with rain off and on, throughout the morning, but it could'nt dampen our enthusiasm. We got good looks at a Common fiscal, (shrike) in the tall grass across the street."

"Another of the many new birds for me was the Blacksmith Plover."
That first morning in a suburban neighborhood outside of Johannesburg stands out as one of the greatest days of birding in my life. These photos are just a small sampling of all the birds that we saw. I was very jet-lagged but supremely satisfied by the experience. The next day was destined to be much greater still...
Stay tuned for the next leg of the trip.

Before the Saddle

2012-01-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

The latest painting, Before the Saddle, 11x14". I started out with the intention of painting wild mustangs in a winter setting. As I got into the search for reference materials, I stumbled into an area of research that I have mostly ignored until now.
The topic of interest for me became the ancestor of the domestic horse. It seems that the predominate thinking is that modern horses are descended from a species of Asiatic wild horse. Things get kind of fuzzy from there.
There is one living species that has resisted domestication,and hangs on by a slim hoofhold. It's called the Przewalski's Horse.They once existed only in captivity, but they have been re-introduced into a few select areas. One interesting place where they seem to be thriving is the Chernobyl, (sp) Exclusion Zone that was created to keep people away from dangerous levels of radiation. The place is now Eastern Europe's greatest wildlife refuge. Besides the horses, European Bison, Moose, Brown Bears, and Wolves are all thriving, along with a slough of other creatures.
This painting is not meant to be Przewalski's Horses per se, but the ancestral horses that were painted on the cave walls in France. I spent a lot of time on this one, because of a paucity of reference materials. I had to guess at various details.

Since it's a short post, I shot a few photos of late afternoon out my back window. The weather is still well below zero in spite of the sunshine.

The roofs of the trailers look a lot better when they are covered with snow.

It is not smoke rising from chimneys, it's warm exhaust from natural gas heaters.

I'm sure that I could have gotten better photos if I went outdoors, but I hate having to bundle up for five minutes just to go outside. I went out into the cold for lunch already today. I'm even skipping the Audubon meeting that I usually love to attend. Winter is GETTING OLD.

The last light. Now the frost spirits reign supreme for another night.

Cabin Fever

2012-01-16T15:45:00.000-08:00

Is this a Wolf? It was in the field next door.
Last week, Alaska experienced heavy snowfalls. The town of Cordova got 18ft of snow in one week. Anchorage got about 6ft during the same time period. Then came the cold temperatures. We have been south of zero for a long time. The overnight lows on the east side of town where I live, have been running about -25f, that's about -33c. The days high is only a few degrees warmer.

No, it was not a wolf. Just a husky enjoying the deep snow.
During weather like this, I spend a lot more time indoors. This morning I had to get out. The thermometer said it was -21f. Seriously cold. I knew that it was going to be a short walk.

The late sunrise of mid-winter, at about 11:00am.

I intended to photograph the Russian Orthdox church across the field but it was obscured by ice fog.

It was hard work trudging through the snow. My feet went numb in a short time. I was wearing sneakers with only one pair of socks.

Nobody has been driving these cars in awhile.

Somebody who really likes watching tv lives in this funky motorhome. Either that, or this is a hidden CIA surveillance station. I don't know how they manage to stay warm enough.

Several months ago I sent this painting in to the the annual Artists for Conservation Show at Grouse Mountain Resort near Vancouver B.C. It was a pleasant surprize for me when I got this calendar in the mail. I had no idea that my painting was chosen for the calendar. It's in their excellent book as well. Right now, I think the original painting is on display in the wonderful, Arizona Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson. It will be part of the travelling art show for most of this year.

Lone Wolf

2012-01-11T12:50:00.000-08:00

First I did this wolf painting and altered it to make it a potential t-shirt design.

Next, I scanned a cropped image of this wolf.

Then I played with it a little and submitted it to Threadless. It will be up for scoring for the next six days.

http://threadless.com/sharedesign/393746/Lone_Wolf

I hope this link works.

Red Dirt Dog, 11x14"

2012-01-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

My first painting in 2012. This is another painting that looks much better in life than this photo indicates. Still, I hoped it would have come out better. I love painting Coyotes more than wolves.

This one is destined for Treasure Art Gallery in Sedona, Arizona. Treasure Art Gallery is one of the many galleries that closed it's doors a few years ago. I was so happy to be contacted by it's owner, and told that it has re-opened. I have been selling artwork from there for more than 25 years, far longer than any other gallery.
Sedona is located in the red soils and high deserts of Northern Arizona. It is a desolate, but beautiful country that I love to paint. Sedona is known for it's dramatic rock formations which are less interesting for me to paint than the sagebrush flats.

Since this is a short post, I'll include a few photos that I shot from the balcony in front of my apartment. This is the view across the street, directly in front of me. It is part of the military base called Jbear, Joint Base Elmendorf, Richardson.

A long icicle hanging from the roof.

The night time view out of my back window.

The Threadless Design

2012-01-04T00:04:00.000-08:00

For at least a month I have been fighting a major battle with technology. In this digital age, I am a babe in the woods. Back in the good old days, when I designed a t-shirt, I gave the artwork to the t-shirt shop, and they decided what to do with it.
It does not work like that anymore. So someone told me about a company called Threadless. They accept submissions of artwork, put it on their website, and let people vote for their favorite design. Sounds simple, right? Not by a long shot.
I did a design, Ballad of the Sun and Moon, and read through the Threadless instructions for submitting a design. That is where the battle started. To make a long story short, it took endless headaches and three different photo editing programs to get a design that met all their technical specifications.
I submitted Ballad, and the design above, Neolythic Art Show. They said they liked Ballad, but it did'nt meet their specs. This one did squeeze by.
It can become a shirt, and I can get paid for all my work if enough people vote for it. Follow this link http://threadless.com/submission/392450/Neolythic_Art_Show , if you want to check it out. Wish me luck.

Top Ten New Birds, 2011

2011-12-31T17:44:00.000-08:00

The list of my favorite new birds in 2011 is arbitrary, and based mostly on my sentimental opinions. The one that I anticipated seeing the most was the Great Blue Turaco. The first individuals that I saw were in a city park in Entebbe, Uganda on my first day in the country. We also saw Ross's, Black-billed, and White-crested Turacos. All of them new species. They complemented nicely the Knyshna, and Purple-crested Turacos that I saw the year before in South Africa. Turacos occur only in Africa.

Who would'nt be thrilled to see African Grey Parrots in their natural habitat? This one was in the Bigodi Wetlands, in western Uganda.

Whenever I travel to a good birding destination, there are always certain species that stand out, and I want to see them most of all. There are others, such as vagrants, that are so rare that I have no real hope of seeing them.
The Short-toed Snake Eagle, (now called Bedouin's Snake Eagle) is a species that was never even on my radar screen because it is a vagrant to Northern Uganda, and we did'nt even venture that far north. We saw this one in Murchison Falls National Park.

Another extremely rare vagrant that I never even anticipated seeing was this Egyptian Plover, also in Murchison. They are extinct in Egypt, and most of the rest of their traditional range.

Not all my new birds were in Uganda. I got three lifers in Alaska this year. The best was this Redwing in Seward in November. It is a European, or Eurasian vagrant. Another bird that I could never have anticipated seeing.
Over the years I have seen other European vagrants in Alaska. Great Spotted Woodpecker, Tufted Duck, Red-necked Stint, and Arctic Warbler which regularly breeds in a few select areas in Alaska. I have searched in vain for other vagrants that showed up in Anchorage, Siberian Accentor, Common Cuckoo, Eurasian Widgeon, Common Gull, Ivory Gull, Slaty-backed Gull, and others that I have no doubt forgotten.

Dusky Thrush was the Asian vagrant that I saw just a few days ago. Too bad I could'nt get a passable photo.

The primary target species for virtually every birder who goes to Uganda is the Shoebill. it can be reliably found nowhere else. Truly prehistoric in it's visage.

To me, the Black Bee-eater is the epitome of an exotic bird. I hardly dared to hope for this surreal species. What an incredible thrill it was, when Tom pointed this bird out in Bwindi Imperetrable Forest. Too bad I got such poor photos. I did my best to clean this image up a little in photo editing. We saw seven bee-eater species in Uganda.

Another gem that I first hoped to see in South Africa, but missed it. It was the first bird that I identified in Uganda. It turned out to be very common in many places there. The Scarlet-chested sunbird is certainly a great beauty. We saw a bounty of fourteen sunbird species in Uganda.

The elegant Lizard Buzzard was a raptor that I anticipated seeing first in South Africa, but I missed it there. I was happy to see them in Uganda. This individual was in Entebbe. We saw twenty two raptor species, not including vultures. This rounds out my top ten new birds for 2011. There are several runners-up that almost made the list.

Thayer's Gull was the first of my three Alaska lifers this year. I'm sure that I've seen them before, but they are easy to overlook.

Grey-crowned Cranes are another missed species from South Africa. They were fairly common in Uganda.

Abyssinian Ground Hornbill is one of nine species of hornbill that we saw in Uganda. It is by far the largest of the bunch.

African Finfoot is a rare bird that I never really had much hope of seeing. Another thrilling surprize.

The white-backed Night Heron is a bird that is even harder to find than the finfoot. We saw a pair of them in the same place as the finfoots, Lake Mburo. I saw many other incredible birds in Uganda. Use the search engine in this blog if you want to see more Uganda photos.

Chasing Another Vagrant

2011-12-28T18:14:00.000-08:00

At a little past noon today, Bob Winkler, (president of the Matsu Bird Club) picked me up, and we headed across town. When we arrived at Loussac St, there were already several birders there. They had just seen the target bird, but naturally it left before we saw it. Notice the Robins in the trees.

We got set up and waited to see if it would return. The people living in the neighborhood must have thought that the gathering birders were a bunch of lunatics. They have been seeing birders from far and wide tromping around for almost two weeks.

The man with the beard is Bob. The woman in the photo is a local filmaker but I forget her name.

Someone's yard was being guarded by a Christmas dog.

There were lots of birds in the area because there are lots of Chokecherries, and Mountain Ash berries. This is a Bohemian Waxwing.

There was a flock containing fifty or sixty Robins. They were not shy.

Our target bird has been seen travelling with Robins, and we needed to scrutinize each Robin carefully.

It appeared that this Hairy Woodpecker was gathering peanut butter from a feeder and stashing it in the cracks in this telephone pole.

The best photograph I got today was this male Pine Grosbeak with Mountain Ash berries.

THIS IS IT. You cannot identify this bird from this terrible photograph, but it's my third Alaska lifer for the year. We did'nt have to wait for long before one of the vigilant birders spotted this Dusky Thrush. It is an Asian bird that breeds in the Central and Eastern Palearctic. It winters, (normally) in Central and Southern China, Taiwan, and Japan. I believe that this bird is the first seen on the North American mainland with the exception of a few individuals seen in Barrow, Alaska in past years. It has been many years since I have seen any new birds in Alaska. This bird must have been blown in on the same storm that brought the Redwing to Seward. That bird has not been seen since the day I saw it with Betty and Jean. The Dusky Thrush is a Turdus Thrush, like the Redwing.
This winter has also been good for Mckay's Buntings and Snowy Owls locally, although I have not seen any of them. I will soon be doing a post of the top ten new birds for 2011. My three Alaska lifers are sure to make the list. The rest will be my favorite Uganda birds.

Jump In, the Water's Fine

2011-12-25T19:22:00.000-08:00

For some reason I have a hard time coming up with an interesting setting for a Polar Bear painting. That is why I have painted many more Black Bears and Grizzlies. I have never painted a Panda, but I did do a Koala Bear some years ago.
This one, Jump in, the water's fine, is 9x12". It came together very rapidly. It seems to me that my best paintings happen fast. The paintings that take forever never come out as well, no matter how much effort I put into them.

This painting gave me no problems. I worried about how to make the water look natural, but I'm satisfied by the way it came out.

I spent Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day in Wasilla with family. On Christmas morning I took the time to walk around my nephew Dan's neighborhood. This is the view from his backyard.

A closer look at the little cabin. Does it's inhabitant suffer from cabin fever on these long, I mean short, winter days? I think it's really just a shed.

The sun tried to break through the clouds, but could'nt quite make it.

It's all very picturesque, even in the dim Winter light.

There were some birds around, like this Hairy Woodpecker. There were also Ravens, Magpies, Chickadees, Redpolls, Pine Grosbeaks, and a Red-breasted Nuthatch.

A Dusky Thrush, (Asian vagrant) is being seen in Anchorage these days. I have looked for it, but it's too hit and miss to be a reliable sighting, and too cold to spend so much time searching for it.

A frosty, Cow Parsnip seed head.

Some more of the same.

We had a large gathering at my nephew's house.

Since I was walking around the neighborhood with a light coat and no gloves, indoors sure looked warm and cozy through the window.

Olivia and Sarah watching tv.

Malek opens one of his presents while Sarah looks on.

Sarah looks too cute. It was a good Christmas.

More T-shirt Work

2011-12-22T16:36:00.000-08:00

The main thrust of my time lately has been trying to get a design ready to submit to the large T-shirt company called Threadless. They have a very technically complex procedure for submitting designs. Designs are then voted on by the online public. Designs that get the most votes get printed, and the artists get paid.
Since I'm not sure of the process that Threadless uses to print shirts, I really have no idea whether my art can even be printed by Threadless. The design above is called, HARPY.

What kinds of designs will online,(adolescents mostly), respond to? My guess is that exotic creatures will be more popular than North American species. I played around with this Keel-billed toucan painting to make it easier to be printed on a silk screen press. I may need to do this to all my designs. Threadless does not want captions on the designs.

Threadless also does not want photographs of designs. They want scans. This is a greatly reduced version of a scan of Carribea. My scanner can only handle a 9x12" painting. This painting was 12x24", so I just scanned part of it.
The scanner makes high resolution reproductions of paintings, 35 megapixels or so. Threadless wants them to be 250 kb or smaller. That is to make them easier to upload to their website for voting. They want the original hi-res image if it gets chosen to be printed. Reduced images of scans are more digitized than photos. Scans must be easier to print on shirts.

Why spend all this time and effort with Threadless? Because there is nothing else going on in the art world right now. Winter is always completely dead around here. That is why I usually travel at this time of year. With the economy so down this year, it is not looking good for a trip this winter. A couple of designs getting accepted by Threadless would change all that.

This is a much simplified design to make it easy to print on a shirt. It is obviously meant to be on a child's shirt. My big technological challenge has been trying to figure out how to fit a design onto the Threadless t-shirt template. I wrote to them about the problem, and they e-mailed me a step by step procedure using Adobe Photoshop.
I only have an earlier version of Photoshop, and I dont know how to use it. It may not even be possible to follow the steps with it. So far, I can make no headway with it. Very frustrating.

Another painting that would not fit on the scanner. I made two seperate scans with it. They look good as two different t-shirt designs.

This is the other half below. Which one looks better?

Another painting too big for the scanner. It probably looks better being cropped to the above proportions.

I cropped most of the scan of this bear alongside a waterfall. Will it look good on a dark shirt? I may make it even darker to add mystery.

I have many designs ready to go just as soon as I figure out how to layer the artwork onto the t-shirt template. This sun and moon is by far the strangest. Should I do more designs along the lines of this one? What do you think?

Entering a Second Childhood

2011-12-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

The painting above is my version of the central part of a Medieval Russian, astrological chart that I found in an old book. I painted the sun and the moon as children. The moon sleeps while the sun is out. They were completely different in the original woodcut. All the symbols are my own little concoctions, and have no astrological meanings. I painted it on a scrap of white cardboard. It's called, The Ballad of the Sun and Moon, after an old Alejandro Escobedo song. It will never sell, and probably never become a t-shirt, but who cares?

Another version of the same painting that I'm toying with, using my photo editing program. It's all part of my entrance into my second childhood. Moving to Alaska must have been my mid-life crisis, so this has to be my second childhood.
When I was a young artist, I experienced an obsessive creativity that drove me day and night. Ideas would rush over me, and cause me to work at a frenetic pace, trying to get them down on paper or canvas.
Over the years, things slowed down until I gradually started to experience a stifling burn-out. That is more or less the state that I have existed in for the past 5 or 6 years. The slow down in the art market only fed my apathy.
Just since I started thinking about getting back into t-shirt designs, I have been experiencing a resurgence of that old passion for art. The ideas are plagueing me again, almost non-stop. It's a phase. It will pass, but it feels good in the meantime. Is it my second childhood?

This is an old painting that has been stowed away for years. This is an interesting house that I saw in Angangueo, Mexico. I'm certain to try many different kinds of artwork like this one, in an effort to break out of the stranglehold that age and experience have upon me.

Several years ago, I did a series of black and white paintings, like the Dall Rams above. Like the Angangueo house painting, these got stowed away as well.

another in the series.

Another one as well. I have a bunch of other things I intended to post, but I've got to get back to work.

T-shirt Thinking

2011-12-10T18:11:00.000-08:00

Before I moved to Alaska, I designed T-shirts for a local Arizona t-shirt company that marketed all over the country. I have mentioned this before, and I derived about half of my income from the t-shirts. As a serious artist, I always felt that it was beneath me to do this with my talent. When I moved to Alaska, I thought that those days were behind me.
This year has been terrible for art. Galleries are going out of business everywhere it seems. Once lucrative art shows are being cancelled, or not being attended by the public. Scary as it seems to me, painting seems to become more and more obsolete in the world of ipads and twitter.
So once again I feel the need to swallow my arrogant pride, and try to get back into the world of t-shirt design. For the past few weeks I have been designing ideas for possible t-shirts to sell to tourists and residents this summer. I am talking to local t-shirt companies, and getting ready to submit designs for national t-shirt companies like Threadless. One idea is, Cat in the Grass above.

One thing about graphic design is that I get to, (have to) try radically different styles than my normal work. I dont relate, but lots of people do relate to primitive styles and bright colors. I dont mean to imply that Native American inspired designs are primitive, their work is definitely not primitive even though it often gets labelled as such.

Psuedo native inspired art is popular around here like this Tlingkit rip off above. I feel a little guilty doing it, but in Arizona I did native styled artwork for several native tribes to sell on the reservations. They did'nt seem to care that I was not a native American. The shirts sold well amoung both, American Native, and non-native people.

Right now I'm trying to use images of old paintings in new ways so that I dont have to do new artwork from scratch. The captions on these designs are really just samples to have something to show the companies.

I have no real idea of what designs the public will respond to. I also think that I have a great advantage over many other t-shirt artists, because I can replicate the style of work that most of them do, and I can do things that many of them cannot do.

Big Wild Life is the slogan that the city of Anchorage uses to promote tourism.

I kind of like this one. Will anyone else like it? Who knows? My ideas are really corny, I do know that.

This is another idea that I like. With my basic photo editing program, I can alter my paintings. The original painting is very pale and diffuse.

My photo editing program has six different kinds of borders that I can choose to put around the designs, but I prefer to to use rough edges to make it look more painterly.

What I'm hoping will happen is that I can create a popular series of related designs. Like a series of dark designs, all with the caption, Night Creature.

Alaska Wild is the name of a now defunct, football team.
So, what are your t-shirt thoughts? Which designs do you relate to? I need some feedback. Please voice your opinions, positive or negative.

Bear With Me

2011-12-07T17:32:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, back in the early sixties, near the isolated town of Greer, Arizona, there were some strange occurances. Greer is a one horse town in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona, located deep inside the largest Ponderosa Pine forest in the USA.
The area is prone to some serious forest fires. There was a tragic accident where a smoke jumper was sucked into the heart of the fire. His body was never recovered. The man had been a decorated paratrooper from the D-day invasion in WWII.
A year or so later a ranch hand was working for one of the cattle operations a few miles outside of Greer. On Saturday nights, he and his fellow cowboys would head for the Wagon Wheel Lounge in Greer for a couple of beers. One Saturday evening he was delayed by some problem with a corral and he got left behind by his companions.
When he was finished with his chores he decided to walk into town. He grabbed a flashlight and set off at a quick pace. Soon he became aware of the sound of footsteps in the forest behind him. He stopped to listen. The sound stopped. He shined his flashlight into the forest, nothing. Then the sound of footsteps started up again as soon as he started walking. He was sure it must be a bear.
He repeated the process of stopping to listen, and shining his light all around, still nothing. The footfalls were getting closer and closer. He started walking faster and faster. He was on the outskirts of town when he stopped and shined the flashlight behind him. There it was, a dark figure with eyes shining red in the flashlight beam. It had the look of a severely disfigured man, with crispy black skin. Savage looking claws protruded from twisted hands.
That was it, he panicked and ran for it. It chased him and got closer and closer. As he reached the door of the Wagon Wheel, the creature ripped open the flesh of his back with it's huge claws. He staggered inside and the creature ran off. Thus the legend of the Demolish Man was born.
This was the story that was told to me on my first Boy Scout campout when I was twelve years old. I huddled in my sleeping bag in terror, acutely listening to every little rustle on that night, and many other campouts afterward. The Demolish Man was out there somewhere.
The fear of the dark, and of the supernatural, added first stark terror to my young imagination, and later morphed into a delicious apprehension on campouts as I grew older. It still adds some mystical spice to the camping experience to this day.

Fast forward from my Boyscout days to my mid twenties. I moved to Lakeside, Arizona, not too far from Greer. I had a friend from my youth who became a police officer in Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, 200 miles from Lakeside. In those days I often traded my paintings for guns because it was easier to sell guns than paintings. Gun owners would not part with hard earned cash for a painting, but they would happily trade guns for them. So I had a Ruger .357 magnum that made me feel like Dirty Harry.
Jeff called me up to tell me that he found a Coral Snake in the Mesa Police Department's parking lot. He scooped it into a jar and called to see if I wanted it. I wanted to photograph it so I drove down out of the White Mountains, into the desert. I brought my gun in case Jeff and I decided to go shoot soda pop cans or whatever.

On the way back, my beat up old Chevy Nova kept stalling. The transmission was going out but I thought it was only vapour lock that would go away as soon as I got back up into the mountains. Every twenty miles or so, I had to stop to let the car cool down before I could go on.
It was still daylight when I left Mesa, but by 2:00am I was only into the long stretch of winding and mountainous desert highway between Globe and the infamous Salt River Canyon. There was virtually no other traffic on the road.
I was pulled over, lying across the warm car hood and looking up at the bright constellations in the pristine sky. Then I heard something big moving throught the desert scrub a few hundred feet away. I grabbed my flashlight, but the brush was too thick and I could see nothing. It came closer and I retrieved my loaded gun out of the glove box. Just a precaution. It could be a bear or a Mountain Lion. Even Jaguars are occasionally found in Arizona's wilderness.
As it got closer I shined my flashlight, I could see a pair of large red eyes way back in the vegetation. It was there, it was big, and it was real. My hands were literally shaking in fear. Was it a dangerous animal? The Demolish Man even came to mind but I dismissed that thought. Should I shoot? No, I should wait to see if it was going to charge. Then I thought that if I waited til it charged, then it might be too late to stop it.
I aimed my gun with one hand, and shined the flashlight with the other. I stood in indecision until I heard a loud MOOOO!
What a relief. I was so glad that I did'nt shoot an innocent cow.

Flash forward to my first Summer in Alaska. I climbed the dominate peak above my home in Eagle River. It has the unique name of Mount Baldy, ( I think every town has a Mount Baldy)
On the was down I decided to take an alternate route through some dense stands of Alder. There was a narrow dirt track leading through the Alders. The vegetation was so thick it was like a solid wall. Soon I heard footsteps inside the thick trees, just like the Demolish Man story.
Since it was broad daylight, I was thinking Moose or Bear, not Demolish Man. It followed me. When I stopped, it stopped. I stuck my head into the wall of vegetation but it was too thick and dark to see anything. I walked faster. It kept pace for awhile but gradually fell back.
After a few hundred yards I saw a gap in the Alders. I stepped off the track and waited in the open to see what was following me. I had no gun with me this time, but I was far less nervous. I had my camera at the ready and I could see the vegetation moving as a large creature pushed through it, coming closer to me.
When it got to the edge of the gap, it stopped just out of sight. It certainly knew that I was there.
I waited, but there was no movement. My patience ran out, and so I went on my way. I never saw the animal, but I know it was my first bear encounter in Alaska. It's funny, but not seeing it gave me a bigger thrill than I have gotten on the occasions when i did see the bear.

Suicidal Tendencies

2011-12-03T21:08:00.000-08:00

The photos in this post were all taken by either Scott or Jean. While my bicycle is safely stowed away for the winter, some brave, tough, and foolhardy people ride their bikes in town throughout the winter. Besides being perilously slippery, it's hard work. Like riding a bicycle through very soft sand, it wears you out quickly.
These photos of Scott and friends were taken on the frozen river and sloughs about 50 miles south of Anchorage. Most of the time, frozen bodies of water are covered by a thick blanket of snow on top of the ice. Sometimes conditions are different, and the ice is snow free.

My bicycle is a touring bike with very narrow tires. Completely unsuitable for travelling across ice. Scott and friends have specialized equipment. Mountain bikes with thick, studded tires, and heavy duty clothes, like the giant mittens in the photo above. Riding across this ice is like riding a bicycle around an ice-skating rink.

The beauty of the scene is apparent, but I almost shiver with cold just looking at these photos.

Anyway, it must be lots of fun.

The rest of these photos are Scott and friends at Big Johnstone Bay on the Kenai Peninsula. Before landing on the ice, Scott tests it's thickness by dropping old bowling balls out of the airplane. If it breaks through the ice, he turns back to Anchorage, and tries again another day.

Broken off ice chunks from Excelsior Glacier,get imprisoned for the winter in the frozen lake.

.Scott poses amoung the sculpted ice.

Some of his friends pose as well. A very Christmassy scene.

The glacier made a wonderful playground for the younger folk.

They slid from the glacier onto the frozen lake. Great fun, no doubt.

Showdown at Lowell Point

2011-11-28T16:17:00.000-08:00

Although I wanted to drag this out a little longer, I'm impatient to finish my tale of the Redwing quest. Near the beginning of Lowell Point Road, just past the main part of town is the most reliable place in Seward to see dippers. This small waterfall is still flowing although it was mostly frozen.

There were no dippers today.

There are several people around Seward who put out sunflower seeds for winter birds, like this pair of Pine Grosbeaks.

Several days before our trip to Seward, Alaska had a gigantic windstorm. Icy winds blew in from Siberia for days. That is what undoubtedly brought in the Redwing.
The wind also stripped Mountain ash Trees of their berries. Waxwings and Grosbeaks feasted on the fallen berries after the storm.

This was the best opportunity I've had to photograph Pine Grosbeaks and I really wanted to keep on taking photos of them. Both sets of my camera batteries were wearing down rapidly in the cold. My first set of batteries died completely after this photo. I still had to find the Redwing. Not to mention the fact that my fingers were getting too numb to operate the camera, and I was shivering badly.

Finally we arrived at the end of the road. Above is the last house in Seward. I really wish that I lived in this house. No one was home when we were there. This is the area where the Redwing had been spotted for the previous four days.

We saw nothing at first, but there were three other birders there. They said the Redwing had been on the other side of this house one minute before we arrived, but had flown down the beach. They said, "dont worry, it will be back soon".

We did'nt have to wait for more than about five minutes. Good thing, it was really cold in the wind, even though it was only slightly windy. The Redwing came back because it found a small area beside the house where it was protected from the wind.
Redwings are a turdus thrush, related to Fieldfares, and American Robins. This bird had strayed more than 3000 miles from it's normal range, across some high mountain ranges, across the Kamchatka Peninsula, along the length of the Aleutians, and somehow it landed in Seward.
The bird was not spotted yesterday at all, but it has been easy to see for a week and a half before that.

My photos of the bird leave much to be desired, but local Seward birder Carol Griswold got better photos, like this shot of the bird foraging on the beach.

Carol was one of the first birders to see the bird. She braved the fiercest of the windstorm to help acertain the strange new bird's identity. The only other North American sightings of the bird were in Newfoundland, far Northeastern Canada. Thank you Carol for letting me use your photos.

The end of a very successful day. After a welcome, but expensive bowl of chili, we made the long drive home.

Smith's Little Birdies

2011-11-25T21:47:00.000-08:00

I'll get back to the conclusion of our search for the Redwing in Seward soon. First I will do this post starting with a detail photo of the painting I finished an hour or so ago. What is it? A Savannah Sparrow perhaps? No. This bird is a female of another species. A clue to it's identity is in the title of this post.

This is a detail of the male. If you have'nt figured it out yet, pull out a field guide to North American birds, or, read on.

The complete painting. Smith's Longspurs, 9x12". They are an uncommon bird that nests on the Alaskan and Canadian tundra. They winter on the short grass praries of the Southern-central states.
They are a highly sought after species by hardcore birders. The best place to see them on their breeding grounds in Alaska, is in a few specific meadows along the Denali Highway, known only to bird guides.
Although I have searched, like many others who search, I have been skunked so far.

Since this is a short post, I'll flesh it out by showing a few photos of my journey to Thanksgiving Dinner at my nephew Dan's house in Wasilla. It was a forty mile drive through a bit of a blizzard. At times it was a complete whiteout. There were many vehicles in the ditch at the side of the highway.

Eventually it cleared up enough to not be terrifying.

With your indulgence I'll finish this with some photos taken by my four year old niece, Olivia. After I shot this photo of her, she wanted to borrow my camera to take her own photos.

The camera was too big for to to control so she got some abstract images like this shot of the tablecloth.

Olivia had a particular fascination for the television, and she shot many photos of it until I suggested she photograph her own family instead.

Olivia got a shot of her mother Angie, busily preparing the Thanksgiving meal.

Next she got this portrait of her dad.

Big brother Zack, helping his mother with the preparations.

Little sister, Sarah got jealous of Olivia's use of my camera, so she got to borrow her mother's camera.

The Quest for the Redwing Continues

2011-11-22T16:55:00.000-08:00

We finally broke away from Seward's marina, although I would have loved to spend another hour or so exploring it. We moved north along the rocky shore in front of downtown Seward. You can see Resurrection Bay in the photo above and some of Seward's outlying buildings at the base of the rugged mountains across the bay.

There is always some good wildlife to see offshore from the rugged coast. In past years we got to see Murres and Murrelets, Sea Lions, Harbor Seals, Sea Otters, and more. This time we saw several rafts of Barrow's Goldeneyes.

They were not shy.

Standing on a cliff looking down at the milling goldeneyes, I felt like I was in the middle of them. I think they were hugging the shore to avoid the icy winds.

For some reason I always see far more female Common Mergansers than males. This is the best photo I have gotten of males.

As usual, the female Common Mergansers were more cooperative.

Continuing north along the coast, I was really hoping to find some Harlequin Ducks. We found one pair, but they were not hugging the shore like I wanted to see. The male Harlequin is easily the most attractive Alaskan duck, with the possible exception of the eiders.

What I really wanted to see, (Redwing excepted) were some scoters. I did not have any photos of scoters before last saturday. Then we came upon some Surf Scoters, the most attractive of the three species.

If I had more time, and if it were not so blasted cold, I could have gotten much better photos of these cooperative seaducks.

Surf Scoters are the most gregarious of the scoters. I have seen them in rafts of hundreds of individuals. Usually far offshore.

On a freshwater pond we saw some Mallards and Common Goldeneyes.

This third winter, Glaucous-winged Gull was cavorting on a wave-whipped formation of ice on the shore. The latest reports of the Redwing stated that it was being seen at the end of Lowell Point, the most northerly stretch of Seward's beach. We will finally get to Lowell Point the next time.

A Beautifully Brutal Day in Seward

2011-11-19T23:45:00.000-08:00

The day was -9f, that's -24c, when I left Anchorage with my longtime friends Betty and Jean. Betty did the driving for the 125 mile long journey. We were well south of Anchorage when the day started to brighten up.
As I stated at the end of the last post, a European vagrant called a Redwing had been seen in Seward for the last four days. We wanted to see it for ourselves.

We passed Turnagain Arm, and were heading into the mountains of the Kenai Peninsula when the rising sun touched the mountaintops. The winter sunshine holds no warmth at all. It can't even melt the frost off of windshields.

Beautiful, but mercilessly cold.

It's completely silly of me, but I always feel pity for the birds and mammals that have to endure the winter weather. When you observe them, most of the time they go about their daily activities with an exuberant indifference to the cold. Do they consciously even notice the cold?
I also fear the thought of breaking down in a remote place. People do die of exposure who are stranded for too long.

For reasons I dont really understand, some of the local lakes freeze over so solidly that you can drive across them. Other nearby lakes like this one, dont freeze at all. You can't see the open water because of the mist rising from it.

At last we arrived in the funky, coastal town of Seward, pronounced Sue-word. It survives off tourism and fishing. The place is a near ghost town during the winter, but it's a complete madhouse in the summer.

The quaint, little town is predominated by it's fishing boat marina.

As a teenager, I spent a great deal of time hanging out around the Santa Barbara Marina,( I had several friends whose parents owned boats). So I get a warm, fuzzy feeling whenever I'm around a marina. Seward's marina is the best.

It's the best because it's a good place to see great birds like these Barrow's Goldeneyes.

And some more of them.

And lots of loons, like this non-breeding Pacific Loon.
Stay tuned for more to come from our long day in Seward.

An Arctic Bird

2011-11-18T17:17:00.000-08:00

A bad photo of my latest painting. I photographed it outside in natural light. It was +3f , -17C degrees when I photographed it, the day's high temperature. The problem is that at this time of year, the sun remains low on the horizon, and often the light is too dim.

So I moved the painting indoors and photographed it in the bathroom. This photo looks more like the actual painting although the bird's body is a little darker than the photo indicates. It's a white morph Gyrfalcon. This painting took longer than I anticipated because I made endless minor revisions to it.
Arctic Falcon, 16x20".

Someone reported seeing a Redwing, that's a European bird and not a North American Red-winged Blackbird. It was on the beach in Seward, about 100 miles from here. It has been hanging around for three days now.
Tomorrow I'm leaving early to try to spot it. Seward is also a good place for seabirds and awesome scenery. I'm all excited about the trip and hope to have good photos for a new post soon. It will be very cold there, nearly intolerable if there are strong winds.

Storkville, Cambodia

2011-11-14T19:03:00.000-08:00

A few years ago, I briefly covered both Prek Toal and Angkor Wat in one post. Now I'm going to take the time to do it right. The photo above shows a bunch of nesting Asian Openbill Storks. There are some Painted Storks and other odds and ends scattered around as well. The vegetation gives the impression of solid ground beneath, but it's all inundated by several feet of water.

The day started at 4:00am when we left our hotel in Siem Reep. A short tuk-tuk ride to Chong Neas, a boat ride across part of Tonle Sap Lake, and an arrival to the floating village of Prek toal at about 6:30am. We showed up to the Prek Toal Bird Sanctuary Administrative Building, (floating), only to be told that it opens at 8:00am.
When some sanctuary personnel showed up at 8:00am, they told us that we needed to go to the sanctuary in their boat, with their people. The tour would only last until 1pm. I tried to explain that we were willing to pay extra for a customized, longer tour of the sanctuary. Because of the language barrier, we could not make them understand our desires.

It took half an hour to fill out the paperwork, pay the fees and hop aboard a clunky wooden boat. There was our Sanctuary guide, his son, another boatman, Gary, our tuk-tuk driver and myself. None of the sanctuary people spoke one word of english.
Finally we we off to the sanctuary. I was chomping at the bit in anticipation. Prek Toal is known to be the only place in Southeast Asia to see some critically endangered birds, Greater and Lesser Adjutant Storks, Milky Storks, Grey-headed Fish Eagles, White-backed Falcons, and possibly the near mythical Bengal Flouricon. Many other nifty birds that are hard to find in other places.

Right away we started seeing trees full of Indian, and Little Cormorants. New birds for us. We saw Grey, and Purple Herons, Whiskered Terns and much more.

Chinese Pond Herons are an abundant species that was already very familiar to us. At about this point we started seeing some really awesome birds like Cotton Pygmy Geese, kingfishers, and small bitterns. We wanted to get some photos of these gems so we asked the boatman to stop whenever we saw an interesting bird. He stopped briefly, for every bird, rare or common.

Oriental Darters are another hard to get species in most of Southeast Asia. Four in one tree is a very impressive sight.

I wanted to take more time to try for better photos, but the boatman was running out of patience rapidly. It soon got to the point that he would'nt stop at all for most birds. I tried to get our tuk-tuk driver to explain to the sanctuary guide and boatman that we came a long way to see these birds, and that we wanted to go slow enough to photograph some of them.

We came to a rickety wooden platform, built into a tree. It overlooked the colonies of nesting Asian Openbill, and Painted Storks. They were at a fair distance, and we could not see any of the rarer stork species. A few birds flew closer to us, like the openbills above.

Asian Openbills are much more attractive than their somber African cousins, which are dark brown in color. The African Openbills are much easier to approach.

We found a pair of Brahminy Kites building a nest nearby. We also saw several other raptors, but I'm not sure of their identity.

An adult Painted Stork. At about 10am we started back. The boatman and guide became very impatient like horses that are anxious to get back to the barn. They hardly stopped for anything even though we still had plenty of time. I asked our tuk-tuk driver how to say stop in Cambodian. Whenever we saw a good bird I shouted the word for stop. The boatman and guide would look at me like I was a madman, and ignore me.

One great bird that they did stop for, a sub-adult Grey-headed Fish Eagle. We made it back to the village at about 11:30am. The boatman was proud of his accomplishment, like he won the race in record time. I was nearly apoplectic at that point. They got no tip from me.

Revisiting a Floating Village

2011-11-11T16:03:00.000-08:00

In the past several years I have visited floating villages in Thailand, Cambodia, and Peru. It amazes me that people actually build floating houses on foundations of wood or bamboo. They travel by dugout canoes. There are remarkable similarities between these widely scattered cultures. I know that I briefly touched upon the floating village of Prek Toal previously, but it deserves some more detailed attention. The photo above is actually the floating village of Chong Neas on Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. You have to start out there, and cross the largest lake in Southeast Asia to reach Prek Toal.

After about two hours in a fast boat, Gary, our tuk tuk driver, (who arranged the boat trip) the boatman, and myself reached the little village of Prek Toal. It is built at the edge of the seasonally flooded forest at the edge of Tonle Sap Lake. The village is high and dry for half the year, but we were there during the time of seasonal flooding. Where the trees are in the background of the photo above is not dry land, it is flooded forest.

Children play in front of their little houses, and they paddle around in boats that are almost too big for them to manage. Do they drink this water? Certainly their raw sewage goes into the water, and I see them swim and fish in this water. One person was even raising crocadiles in a floating pen in the village. Not too sanitary.

Many of the houses have dogs that dutifully guard the home.

I think the red building in the background is the village school.

It was surprising to see a floating Christian church in a Bhuddist land. I dont even remember whether there was a Bhuddist temple in Prek Toal or not.

An Oriental Magpie Robin on top of an administrative building of some sort. I think that the little white things hanging under the overhang are cacoons.

Blue-tailed Bee-eaters were my first of 13 species of bee-eater that I have seen so far. Prek Toal is the only place where I saw them.

I was also thrilled to see a Painted Stork fly over the village. It was another first sighting of that species for me.

Brahminy Kite was also a first in the village. The real purpose of our visit to the village was the adjacent Prek Toal Bird Sanctuary nearby. I'll do a post about that little adventure soon.

Winter White, At Night

2011-11-06T23:45:00.000-08:00

The snow started falling again this evening so I grabbed my camera. We got another five or six inches, and the snow is still coming down.

Another look at the forlorn flag in front of my neighbor's apartment.

The trailer park directly out my back window.

See the man clearing the snow off his roof? Either that, or I got a shot of a cat burglar in action.

I went into the vacant land next door and photographed the view looking towards the road out front.

This view almost looks like sand instead of snow. You can still see an impression of my footprints from earlier in the day. I was hoping to get an interesting view of the Russian Orthodox church at night. Unfortunately it was not lighted, and I could'nt see it at all.

So I went out to the highway. You cant really even see the road itself, but this is Alaska's busiest highway, and the only route into the state's interior, and to Canada, and beyond. Not a vehicle in sight.

Winter White

2011-11-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

A friendly neighborhood Moose enjoying the fresh snowfall in the lot next to my place.

Lots of places far to the south have gotten snow before we did. Our first snowfall in town was on Oct. 30th. Only an inch or two, but these neighborhood children wasted no time going out and playing in it.

Last night we got about 8" of new snow. My next door neighbor is a proud veteran who always displays the flag. This is the view I saw when I opened the door this morning.

Somebody left their bycicle out in the snow. It will probably be quite awhile before she gets to ride it again. Like next April or May.

A common sight in Winter. Lots of people make extra money plowing out parking lots and driveways.

I walked through the fields next door to take in the sights of early Winter.

Scenes like this are potential inspiration for future paintings. Ink and photo paper are expensive so I'm always way behind on printing out new reference photographs. Especially this year with the terrible economy.

A Black Cottonwood treetrunk.

The days of watching Sunday afternoon football on tv are over for this abandoned couch.

A wide shot of the mountains and the Russian Orthodox Church.

A medium view of the same thing.

A close up of the only remotely interesting building in this whole section of town.

Truth in advertizing, I shot these Moose photos here last winter. I have not seen any Moose in the area lately.

Say goodbye for now.

Sitka Blacktail and the Oracle

2011-11-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

My latest painting, Sitka Blacktail, 12x9. Sitka Black-tailed Deer are native to Southeast Alaska, and have been introduced to Kodiak Island. They are a small species of deer, and tend to have small antlers. This painting would be considered a large buck. I wanted to capture the look of late afternoon, after the sun has set.

a detail of the head.

Since this is a short post, I'll flesh it out with a brief history lession. My last post was about the Nasca Lines in the Western desert of Peru. There are many archeological sites throughout the barren deserts all along the west coast of Peru.
The principle site in southern Peru is called Pachacamac, about 30 miles south of Lima. It was first occupied about 200 AD, or CE, as they call it now. It was built by the Cuismancu Empire that preceded the Inca Empire by more than a millenium.
Pachacamac is a Huaca, or God, of fire and earthquakes. Huaca is also the generic term for pyramid. The structure above is the huaca, or temple of the sun.

Another complex of eroded buildings shot from the temple of the sun. There are a number of buildings scattered around Pachacamac, and more within Lima's city limits. I cant help but wonder what it all looked like in it's heyday.

Another part of the temple of the sun. I was informed that various parts of human sacrifices were placed inside the alcoves on the right of the photo. I have some skepticism about that.
Way back when the Spanish Conquistadores first arrived in Peru, they first went to Cajamarca, and captured the Inca leader, Atahualpa. Before they held him for ransom, and later murdered him, they questioned him about where all the gold was. Atahualpa told them that Pachacamac was the center of worship for all of South America.
It was the location of the powerful oracle of Pachacamac. The oracle was a thick, wooden staff, carved to look like the Huaca, Pachacamac. It was ancient even back then. Inca priests would consult the oracle for guidance about many issues. I think that maybe Atahualpa hoped that if Pizarro and his men went to Pachacamac in search of gold, the oracle would destroy them.
Pizarro sent a contingent of men to investigate. They were dissapointed by the paltry amount of gold, so they destroyed the place out of habit. Somehow the oracle survived, and now stands in the small museum at Pachacamac. It is not much to look at.

Some Black Vultures keep vigil over a huaca in Lima.

Some alcoves in the wall of a structure in Lima. I imagine they were used for storage.

Some places are better preserved than others. They were built at different times by different cultures.

I dont know what I'm looking at, but it's kind of interesting. Is it a living space? Or for water or food storage?

A nice geometric pattern typical of the region.

This is one of the most important buildings at Pachacamac. I guess it had ceremonial significance.

These are Peruvian Thick-knees. A large, nocturnal species of shorebird that often lives far from water. I know that I have posted about all this before, but I'm trying to use different photos than the first time around. These birds somehow eke out a living in desert that is so barren, there are virtually no plants outside the watered valleys..

I know that I have not posted this particular photo of a Saffron Finch in Lima, next to a huaca.

The race of Blue-black Grassquits in western Peru look quite a bit different than other forms of the same species. This male was on a lawn near the Saffron Finch.

Revisiting the Nasca Lines

2011-10-29T20:12:00.000-07:00

It's cold here nowadays. When it gets cold, my mind immediately turns toward warmer climes. About three years ago, I went to Peru to escape the relentless cold. I know that I did a previous blog post about the mysterious, pre-colombian lines in southern Peru. It is an interesting enough subject, that it deserves a second look.
In the photo above, I shot this self portrait as a group of tourists and myself boarded a Cessna at the small airport near the town of Nasca. The guy next to me was a police officer from Wales. It was his first trip in a small plane.

The instant that any tourist enters the town of Nasca, they are approached by a tout offering tickets to fly over the Nasca Lines. The price seems to be set. I paid about $70.oo US.
The plane rose steeply out of the green, Nasca Valley. The desert is watered by runoff from rain and snow, high in the Andes Mountains to the east. These valleys that are connected to the distant Andes have been cultivated since long before the rise of the Inca civilization.

The valleys that are not connected to the Andes are bone dry. So dry that there is no vegetation in most places. The area recieves about one eighth an inch of precipitation a year. That's about half a centimeter. It comes down mostly in the form of a light mist.

The desert is so stark, that it's almost scary. Even though I was there at the hieght of their Summer, it was not nearly as hot as Phoenix, Arizona in the Summer. It is certainly beautiful.

Most of the Nasca Lines looked like this. The plane would tilt at 90 degrees, first left, then right, so that everyone could get a good look. The poor Brazilian sitting next to the pilot got violently airsick. He filled up three barf bags, his own, and the Welsh cop's, and mine.

The photo above, shows a figure with large bird feet. No one is certain of the purpose of these lines. They were laid down by successive generations of pre-inca peoples. Colonists knew nothing about their existence until someone flew over them in the 1920's. They must have had some ceremonial significance.
In the upper left of the photo, there is an observation tower next to the car, for people who dont want to fly to see the lines. I wonder if the erosion evident in the photo, preceded the tower, or is a result of it's construction?

A whale and an abstract design. The straight lines were made by pre-colombians after the figures were laid down. They were made by scraping off the top layer of soil, and pushing it to the side.

The Thunderbird. Of course these figures were named in modern times, not by their creators.

The Hummingbird. The real genius of these vanished peoples, was not the figures, it was their sophisticated irrigation systems. They even constructed irrigation canals that were covered to prevent evaporation. Some of them ran, and continue to run, for miles under the desert floor. Modern farmers still utilize them.

The spider was my favorite of the bunch. These people even constructed spiral wells, so that they could access the water as it gradually dropped lower.

The big attention getter is called the Astronaut. In more naive times, people speculated that it was inspired by space travellers. I imagine the guy is saying, "hi mom". It is about 200 yards, (meters) tall. I think these people were trying to get the positive attention of the gods in the heavens. There are eroded pyramids scattered throughout the desert as well.

There was this pair of Blue and White Swallows nesting in an embankment at the airport.

A Fast Merganser

2011-10-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

Hooded Mergansers may not be any faster than other mergansers. It was how fast I completed the painting.
Without much doubt, Hooded Mergansers are the most attractive of the various merganser species.
So for this painting, I pulled another old photo from a photo album. This photo was taken by my old friend Richard Inman at Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge, near Socorro, New Mexico. He sent me the photo to use as a reference, in case I ever wanted to use it in a painting. I've been meaning to do so for about 12 years.
First I sketched the bird on an 11x14" gessoboard. Then I roughed in some gray/green water.

In this stage I put a line of bulrushes along the top of the painting, and added some reflections of them in the water.

.Next I put in some thin blue reflections of the sky in the water, and a base of the duck's reflection. Then I extented some faint reflections of the top bulrushes.

The painting started to look like something when I roughed in the merganser.

The painting looks finished at this stage. I refined the subject and it's reflection, but I still have more work to do.

A detail of the completed merganser. There is still more work to do on the rest of the painting.

Richard's original photo had the merganser partially concealed behind more bulrushes. I added them. but I simplified the composition of the reeds.

The completed painting, Hooded Merganser, 11x14". I can't remember whether I've painted one before this. I bet I have.

Another detail photo. The whole painting only took a day and a half from start to finish. Time will tell whether I decide to make future changes to it. For now it looks fine.

Black and White

2011-10-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

After completing the Harpy Eagle painting, I started kicking around ideas for the next painting. Small paintings are the easiest to sell and I have a lot of 9x12" gessoboards on hand. So first I coated one of them with gray gesso, and sanded it smooth after it dried.
Then I went through some of my many albums of reference photos for the zillionth time. I picked out the Black-capped Chickadee photo above first. I cannot remember how many times I have used this photo in paintings before, but it is my favorite chickadee photo.

Chickadee paintings are without doubt, the easiest of all subject matter to sell. It is no exageration to say that I have done at least 1000 chickadee paintings in my lifetime. There were times when I whipped out four chickadee paintings in one day. I am so burned out on them, that it is almost excruciating to make myself do another. That is why I surprised myself by being in the mood to do another chickadee painting.

This time I reversed the chickadee when I painted it. needless to say, I enhanced it's colors. You have to admit, the painting looks much better than the photo.

This is the other chickadee photo that I picked out. It is a copy of a print, made from a slide. The original slide does not look so bad. I have used this photo in a number of paintings as well. I guess it's high time for me to go out and get more chickadee photos. I do have dozens of other chickadee photos to choose from.

This is my version of the last photo. A huge improvement if I may be so immodest.

The whole painting, Black and White, 9x12". Now that it's finished, I seem to remember that I did a nearly identical painting, using the same two chickadees, and the same basic composition. Only that earlier painting, was painted in black and white, without any other colors. Ironic that the black and white painting was not called Black and White. The first version may have actually been a better painting without distracting colors.

Fire Island

2011-10-20T23:36:00.000-07:00

This is not THE Fire Island back east that is infamous for it's wild parties, and outrageous behavior. The bad photo above is our little Fire Island just offshore from Anchorage. Fire Island is the low spit of dark land on the right of the photo. Sleeping Lady is the mountain in the background.

No one lives here and access to the island is severely limited. Most of it is owned by the military, or a Native American Tribe, called Cook Inlet Regional Corporation locally. They are getting ready to build a large wind farm on Fire Island next summer.

This photo, and those that follow, were all taken by Scott, who flew out to the island recently. Fire Island is unusual in the area because it has a real beach, and sand dunes.

As you can see by Scott's great photos, this is a very picturesque place. It might look warm and sunny, but our temperatures are in the high thirties faranheit, these days. Low twenties at night. Things are preticted to warm up to the low forties in the next few days. I'll take what I can get.

A small lake. This island is best known for it's constant winds. It is funny to me how different local areas here, have very different weather patterns. Here in Anchorage, the east side of town, where I live, is far less windy and wet, than south Anchorage. We also get much colder here in the winter, than the west side of town. The Cambell Creek Science Center, about three miles away, is the coldest part of town. Interior Alaska is much colder still.

You can imagine the frequent winds by seeing the striations in the sand.

Any plant experts out there that can identify this plant? I think it's non-native to Alaska.

A Devil's Club. See the spines on the stalk? That's how it gets it's name. They are wimpy compared to the spines on many plants in the Southwest.

This is not from Fire Island. Scott shot this photograph today. I'm not sure where. It's another view of the tundra jungle.

Scott told me where he went today, but I forget what he said. This must be Turnagain Arm.

I bet he shot this photo from his airplane, rather than climbing up some steep mountain.

Gull-able

2011-10-15T22:34:00.000-07:00

A local birder reported seeing a Long-tailed Duck, some White-winged, and Surf Scoters on Lake Hood, here in Anchorage. I dont have photos of any of those species, so my friend Dan and I went to check them out.
We waited about a week before getting around to going, so we missed them. While we were out and about, we headed over to Spenard Crossing to see if there was anything to photograph over there. We spotted this gull diving underwater. Who knew that gulls ever dive underwater? Care to guess what species it is based on it's wing pattern alone? You are a master birder if you can identify it.

This aint it. This is a winter, Mew Gull that was hovering nearby.

This is the Mew Gull, in front of the diving gull. Any guesses yet? It's an easy one now that you can see it's head.

Compare this gull to the top gull in the last photo. Notice the difference in head, and bill shapes? This gull is the one I shot a few weeks ago that I thought might be a Thayers Gull. Now I'm certain that it is. A new bird for me. Any guesses on the identity of the diving gull?

It's really no mystery. It is one of the most widespread, and common gulls in the world. It is made up of many sub-species, related species, and geographical races. It's just a common ol' Herring Gull. There is a reason why it was trying to dive underwater...

There was a large, rotting salmon just underwater. It was too big for the gull to pull up. So the gull was trying to tear off bite-sized chunks. Yuck!

It would hop up, and dive most of the way underwater to reach the big fish. Those are Gadwalls in the background.

Another perspective of the diving, Herring gull.

It never went all the way underwater.

A Common Goldeneye passes in front of the Herring Gull. It gives some perspective on the relative sizes of the two birds.

There were no sea ducks at Lake Hood, but the top duck in the photo is sort of a sea duck. It's a female, Red-breasted Merganser, with a widgeon. I have never seen a Red-breasted Merganser on fresh water before, and never in Anchorage either. Although they nest on fresh water, they usually winter in the sea.

The Harpy and the Moon

2011-10-13T01:25:00.000-07:00

This is my latest painting. A Harpy Eagle, 12x16". I dont have a title for it yet.

Seeing one of these in the wild was one of my greatest birding goals. I finally got it in Ecuador about three and a half years ago. What a major thrill. Now I want to see the Phillipines Eagle. That's not likely to happen.

For the last several evenings, I have been photographing the end of Autumn in the field next door. I really like the way that the light of the setting sun iluminates the snow on the hillsides.

The light changes by the minute.

The snow line slowly creeps down the mountains toward the town.

Most of the trees are bereft of their leaves, but there are always a few hangers on.

Weed seed heads of some sort.

There are still a few sad, Daisies losing their battle against the cold.

Fireweed seed heads.

Another Fireweed seed head.

A rain puddle dried up. The mud cracked. Now it's coated by a fine film of frost.

The rain puddles that did'nt dry up, are freezing fast.

I like the abstract patterns of the frozen water.

The full moon rose over the mountains, just after the sun went down. Now it's time for dinner.

Some Kenai Seabirds

2011-10-10T17:23:00.000-07:00

Most of the birds in the photo above are Common Murres. They live up to their name of Common, they can often be seen in great numbers.

These birds are widespread in the Northern Hemisphere. They are somewhat reluctant to fly, and look, and act a lot like penguins.

Their abundance is in direct proportion to the abundance of small, schooling fish that occur in northern waters. ( I may have posted some of these photos some time ago.)

Along with these Common Murres on the Kenai Peninsula, there are also lesser numbers of similar, Thick-billed Murres.

Common Murres nest on steep cliffs along with, Black-legged Kittiwakes. Tufted, and Horned Puffins are common nesters on sea cliffs as well.

Black-legged Kittiwakes are obviously a species of gull. If anything, they are even more abundant than Common Murres.

The Chiswell Islands are part of Kenai Fjords National Park. They are a sanctuary for nesting seabirds, like these Thick-billed Murres.

There are a number of different species of sea ducks that can be seen along the coasts of the Kenai. These are Harlequin Ducks in the photo above. Long-tailed Ducks, Common, Red-breasted, and Hooded Mergansers, Black, Surf, and White-winged Scoters, and Common Eiders also occur there. The other eider species can be seen occasionally as well.

The uncommon Kittlit'z Murrelet is a small, obscure alcid that is pretty much endemic to Alaska during the breeding season. They nest amoung rocks, sometimes far from the ocean. Marbled Murrelets, and sometimes Ancient Murrelets also occur on the peninsula.
There are also several species of auklets on the Kenai. Rhinocerous, and Parakeet Auklets are the most commonly found.

Another common seabird, the Pigeon Guillemot is widespread along the west coast of North America. It has bright red feet. It nests close to shore, under boulders and driftwood.

Black Oystercatchers are an odd shorebird of the west coast. There are several closely related, dark oystercatchers in other parts of the world.

There is a big shorebird festival, held every spring in Homer. The Kenai Peninsula is loaded with migrating shorebirds in early to mid May. Western Sandpipers, and Dunlins are the most abundant species.

Sanderlings, like this southbound juvenile, are common further south, but not common at all in Alaska.

Today's Sightings

2011-10-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

I'll take a break from my visits to the Kenai Peninsula to post some of the photos I shot today around here. This is my best Magpie in flight photo.

Right now we are at the tail end of Autumn. Many of the trees are already bare. Several weeks ago I posted another photo of this same bridge, but I like this view better.

Today was cloudy, and 10 degrees colder than it was the last time I visited Westchester Lagoon. The snow will be here in town soon enough.

So many birds have migrated out of here, but I'm kind of surprized by what is still here. There are lots of ducks around, like this Green-winged Teal.

These are female Buffleheads. The males were too far away for photos.

It was the same situation with the Greater Scaups. The males stayed far out on the water.

The local Bald Eagle preferred to perch on a small island, rather than it's usual tree.

If there would have been stronger light, this would be a better action photo.

There were two Steller's Jays, one on either side of Westchester.

A preening male, Downy Woodpecker.

Just before dark, I walked around in the field next door.

It's been raining lately. I liked the reflections of the trees in the rain puddles.

This far north, dusk lingers on and on. I posted photos of this Russian Orthodox Church last Fall. This is how it looks now.

These trees have already lost their leaves.

A Scary Bear Story on the Kenai

2011-10-04T17:19:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year to go Moose hunting in Alaska. My grown nephews, Sterling and Danny are avid Moose hunters. The large amount of meat from a Moose really helps to supplement their family's food budget.

A few years ago, I accompanied my nephews on their annual Moose hunt. It was cold and rainy every day, and even snowed on us one night. That was enough for me, so I went home early. Sterling and Danny slogged on, and decided to check out the Swanson River area on the Kenai Peninsula.

The thing about the Swanson River is that it is loaded with spawning salmon. Right about now is when the Coho Salmon are finishing up their annual spawn. That attracts bears.
My nephew Danny and I had explored the area on a previous Moose hunt, and saw an immense amount of bear scat and partially eaten salmon all over the area.

This time, Sterling and Danny were making their way up a side stream. They were out of the canoe, hauling it over a Beaver Dam. Sterling was pulling from the front, and Danny was pushing from the back. They were in thick brush with little visibility...

Sterling stepped around a bend in the creek, and there was a huge Grizzly (not the bear in the photo). It saw Sterling in the same instant and charged. Sterling had just a split second to react, and shot the bear in the face at point blank range with his .270 deer rifle. The bear veered off, and ran into the thick forest. Sterling and Danny knew that a wounded bear is extremely dangerous, especially with other hunters and fishermen in the vicinity. They knew that they had to track the bear and finish it off.
They said a prayer, then followed the blood trail into the thick woods. The blood trail led them in a circle until they found the dead bear only about 25 feet from where they shot it. The bear was trying to circle around, and get them from behind.
It had a previous bullet hole in it's ear. Sterling's bullet did not even penetrate the bear's skull. It travelled around the skull, under the bear's muscles, and then entered the bear's abdomen, and penetrated it's vital organs.
They followed Alaska law, and cut off the bear's skin, head, and paws, which they brought to the nearest Fish and Game office. The people there were already familiar with that particular bear, and said that it had mauled some hunters the previous year. It stood 9 ft tall, and weighed 700 lbs. They got no Moose that year.
More to come from the Kenai soon. This time it will be a happier subject matter.

Wild Critters on the Kenai

2011-10-03T17:34:00.000-07:00

The wildlife of the Kenai Peninsula is representative of the whole state with a few exceptions like Musk Ox. Grizzly Bear populations on the Kenai have fallen low enough that they are no longer hunted. There are a lot of trigger-happy residents living there that dont care to share their space with bears, so plenty of them get shot every year anyway.

I have to admit that this photo, and the top photo, were not taken on the Kenai. I photographed these bears in Denali NP. The Denali bears, eat mostly berries and other vegetation. Kenai bears also eat a lot of salmon, and they tend to be bigger with shaggier fur.

Moose are particularly abundant on the Kenai. Even with heavy hunting pressure. Although I have photographed Moose on the Kenai, this resting bull was in Denali.

Another Moose in Denali. I chose to use these photos, instead of Kenai Moose photos, because they were taken in the Fall, while my Kenai photos were mostly taken at other times of the year.

A one antlered Caribou crosses the highway. Both male and female Caribous have antlers. Judging by the size of this Caribou's antler, this is a cow. The Kenai population of Caribou is insular, meaning that they do not migrate far, like other caribou populations.

Probably the best part of the Kenai Peninsula are the spectacular coastlines. Kenai Fjords National Park is the crown jewel. There are many dramatic cliffs, and small islands where many seabirds nest. This is a bull, Steller's Sea Lion in Kenai Fjords.

A cow, Steller's Sea Lion on Gull Island near Homer. Steller's Sea Lions are quite a bit larger than California Sea Lions. Their numbers have plummeted in recent decades. Many researchers have studied them to determine the cause of the decline, without finding a definitive answer.
In my opinion, overfishing, especially commercial fishing is the cause, either directly, or indirectly. The Coast Guard just caught a factory ship, illegally drift-netting in Alaska waters. No country will claim ownership, but the crew are all from Indonesia. The ship is also overun with rats.

A common inhabitant of the coasts around the Kenai is the adorable, Sea Otter. You can often see them floating just offshore in Homer and Seward.

The coastlines of the Kenai are also a good place to spot whales in the Summer months. Especially Humpbacks like these.

One of the most abundant seabirds of the Kenai, is the Common Murre. This bird wears it's non-breeding plummage.

A distinctive inhabitant of rocky shorelines, the Black Oystercatcher.

Right about now young Common Loons are gaining independence from their parents. Soon the adults will be wearing the same non-breeding plummage as the young loon in the photo above. They spend the winter along the coast. Usually south of here.

Beavers share some of the same waters as the loons.

Steller's Jays are more common along the coasts of the peninsula, while Gray jays dominate the interior. I see more Steller's Jays here in Anchorage, but Gray Jays are around town as well.

A common game bird of the peninsula, Spruce Grouse. I have eaten a few. Some are very tasty, like Cornish Game Hens. Others are gamey, like an old buzzard. It all depends on what the bird has been eating. The male in this photo was right by Scott and Jean's cabin. We did not eat it.
There are enough interesting animals that live on the Kenai Peninsula, that I think I will do another post about them soon. Maybe I'll concentrate on seabirds although I dont have photos of most species.

Let's Go to the Kenai

2011-09-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

These first photos were taken by Scott from his plane. The scenery is the Kenai Peninsula. I'm not sure if this is Kenai Lake, or Skilak Lake. The milky color is glacier meltwater.

When I first moved to Alaska, this landscape would probably have had many more Spruce trees in it. I arrived to the state in the middle of a major Spruce Bark Beetle infestation. It hit the Kenai especially hard, and devastated large Stands of Spruce trees all over the peninsula.
Shortly thereafter, there were many huge forest fires that burnt off the dead trees, and caused Birch trees to flourish.

The famous Kenai River is well loved by fishermen and women because of the huge runs of salmon that arrive most years. Fishing quotas are set by the numbers of each species that show up in a given summer. That number can vary greatly from year to year.

Salmon also attract bears. There are lots of interactions between bears and people along the Kenai and Russian Rivers. A few people get mauled, and a lot of bears get shot. Most meetings end peacefully for both parties.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of lakes on the Kenai Peninsula. Many of them have very stagnant water that is unsafe to drink. I'm not real sure of the cause other than extensive, boggy habitat.

The water in the mountains tends to be safer than the water out on the flat areas.

The rest of these photos were taken by me on the ground. Driving south from Anchorage, the highway snakes along the edge of Turnagain Arm, which is part of Cook Inlet. It got it's name when Captain Cook tried to sail along the coast. He had to turn back because of shallow water and treacherous currents.
After about 50 miles, Turnagain Arm ends, and the highway turns onto the Kenai Peninsula.

A single shaft of sunlight hits the mountainside beside the highway. The whole area abounds with wildlife.

We took a fork in the road near here, that heads to the miniscule community of Hope.

If you look carefully along the edge of the water in right of this photo, you can see the buildings of the town. There is a one room schoolhouse, a few small lodges, and a smattering of homes. That's Hope.

This is the beach just out of town, looking across Turnagain Arm to the mainland. The beach is not made up of sand, but mud. There are seldom any waves to speak of.

Most of the year, this is a bleak coastline.

Today I found this cold, Mourning Cloak Butterfly. It's about half the size of the Mourning Cloaks in the lower 48.

Eventually it warmed up in the sun, and opened it's wings.

The crisp, Autumn light was harsh, so it was a challenge to get a pleasing photo. The butterfly soon flew off, but it's days are numbered with temperatures predicted to drop soon.

A Glorious Day on the Trail

2011-09-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

This morning I had every intention of getting some work done. Since I did'nt manage to do a lick of work yesterday, I felt a little guilty for being so idle.
While I was eating breakfast, the local weather report said that today was going to be the only sunny day for the forseeable future. That sealed the deal for me. I knew I needed to get out and enjoy what may be the last nice day of the year.
The photo above shows what the Coastal Trail looks like right now. Although it's bright and sunny, the temperatures are a little cool as you can see by the coats that these women are wearing. They were overdressed as far as I'm concerned. It was'nt that cold, low 50'sF. The mudflats lie to the right of the trees in the photo. The railroad tracks are to the left. The city of Anchorage is on the other side of the tracks.

My main concentration today was to photograph critters amid the brightly colored fall leaves. There were several Red Squirrels in the trees growing next to the trail.

Many of the songbirds are already out of here, but Common Redpolls are one species that stays around all year. If this bird would have stayed in place for one or two more photos, I could have gotten it in better focus. Nevertheless, this is exactly the kind of photo I was aiming for.

This is another (preening) Redpoll that was much more cooperative. The setting is not quite so scenic as the former photo, but it still looks good.

This little male posed for many photos. This one is as good as any of them.

It was a bit of a surprize to me, to see some Rusty Blackbirds still around. Even more surprizing was a Varied Thrush along the Chester Creek Greenbelt.

Red-breasted Nuthatches are another species that stays all year. This one is either depositing some winter food storage under the bark, or searching for a tasty insect for lunch.

Westchester Lagoon was at it's usual picture perfect best today. This photo does'nt show it, but there were still plenty of ducks on the lake today. Most of them were too far away for photos.

Turning to look the other direction, I got this photo of the choo-choo passing by. The Bonaparte's Gull in the foreground does'nt seem to be too concerned by the train's loud whistle.

There were more Bonaparte's around today than usual. They will be gone in a short time. I was surprized that there were still a few Greater Yellowlegs around. Things are heading south in droves these days.

Nowadays ducks are far enough along in their annual moult that you can easily tell their sexes apart. I've been seeing this one female Shoveler in the same area on Westchester for about a month or more.

The last time I went to Westchester, I saw well over a hundred Gadwalls. Today there were nine. This male is all done with his moult. Not colorful, but very elegant.

A female Greater Scaup. Female Greaters usually have a white cheek patch, while female Lessers do not. You can tell by the shape of this bird's head, that it is a Greater Scaup. It is probably a young duck that is just growing into adult plummage. That may explain the lack of a cheek patch.

These male, Mallards are almost completely out of their moult. Are they older adults, or young of the year just coming into adult colors? I have no idea.

My latest painting. An Ermine, 8x10". I looked for the Ermine today that I saw twice this summer on the Coastal Trail, but I missed it.

A detail of it's head.
I sold two older paintings today, A red-throated Loon, and a Red-necked Grebe. I also got a comission to paint a Harpy Eagle. I guess my career is'nt entirely dead after all.

More of Scott's Great Photos

2011-09-26T18:59:00.000-07:00

Last Autumn Scott flew out into the Alaska bush to take in the colors of the tundra.

A lot of the tundra vegetation is made up of dwarf trees. They are deciduous and turn bright colors in the fall, just like their full sized cousins.

Tundra produces an abundance of berries of many kinds. Every fall, people head up to the tundra to gather berries. Blueberrys are everybodies favorite. Berries help to fatten up Grizzly Bears so they can hibernate through the winter.

A nice sample of berries for making jam, or just eating fresh.

Besides berry bushes and dwarf trees, much of the tundra is made up of mosses, lichens, and ground-hugging flowers. It can be a wildly colorful palette.

The fantastical plants in the movie Avatar were not any more exotic than the tundra jungle. I have painted it many times.
Although I did'nt give it any thought before I moved up to Alaska, tundra proved to be an unexpected delight.

The photo above, and the photos that follow, are some Autumn scenes that I photographed in past years. This fall, I have been experimenting with shooting in RAW format. I have not figured out how to put those photos up on the blog yet.

A photo of the sunlit mountains of theAlaska Range, in the state's interior.

Another view of the bright mountains.

Right now we are seeing termination dust on the local mountaintops. This snow indicates the termination of Summer. Beautiful but foreboding.

The choo-choo chugs it's way past Denali National Park, headed to fairbanks.

The Matanuska River. I apologize if I have already posted some of these photos last fall. I just dont remember. Senility is catching up with me I guess.

Finishing Up the Photo Album

2011-09-23T14:37:00.000-07:00

Spotted Owl, 11x14".
It's been years since I've even looked at the photos of old paintings in the photo album. So these paintings look fresh to me. They represent a good chunk of my creative history. I'm not sure whether I have improved at all as a painter. It seems that you gain ground in one area, and lose it in another.
There were (Mexican) Spotted Owls in the White Mountains in Arizona, where I lived for 19 years. They were restricted to a few remote canyons along the Mogollon Rim. I went looking for them several times, with no luck.

Ice Age Survivor, 16x20". I later added snow to the moose's face, and made the painting look much better.

Coyotes, 16x20". I dont remember the official name of this one, but Coyotes, along with Elk, were a favorite subject of mine when I lived in Arizona. Sparrows have really been one of my favorite all time subjects to paint, but they are hard to sell.

Northern Hawk Owl and Ermine, 11x14". My latest painting is an Ermine in Summer colors, but I have'nt posted that one yet.

Another Sitka Black-tailed Deer. It is 16x20". Naturally I cant remember it's title. My nephew's old boss, Mark, (the same guy I accompanied to Mendeltna Creek this summer) purchased this one years ago.

Western Sandpipers, 11x14". I really enjoy painting shorebirds as well.

Caribou family, 16x12". Another ballpoint pen drawing.

Being a Bear, 20x16". Another Black Bear and waterfall painting. I like the bear, but not the waterfall, so I left it out of the photo.

Red on Green, 16x20". This was a popular painting, that drew a lot of positive attention. The photo of this, and many of these paintings, looks darker than the paintings actually were. This is because I was trying to reduce the harsh contrasts that photos of paintings often create.

Gray Ghosts, 24x36". This was one of the first paintings that I did after moving to Alaska. It sold immediately. A nice paycheck for me. Large paintings like a 24x36", are usually very difficult to sell. That is why I seldom do them.

Fishing Alaska, 20x24". This is a detail of a larger painting. It is hanging in the office of a local doctor who has a number of my paintings.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 12x9". The leaves are Black Cottonwood. They are turning gold right now around these parts.

Gray Jay, Rainy Day, 16x20". Another painting set in Autumn colors, but with raindrops.

An early Snowy Owl painting. I forget the size and title. This painting once looked much different. I set out to make a few adjustments with it, and ended up re-painting everything except the upper right hand corner. The improvements made a big difference.

More Paintings From the Album

2011-09-21T17:13:00.000-07:00

Over the years, I have painted at least a half dozen Black Bears and waterfalls. This is my favorite of the bunch, Black Bear Grotto, 11x14".

Keeping on the bear theme, this is a 16x20" painting of mama and cubs, (grizzlies) emerging from their hibernation den. I forget the name of it.

For some reason, I have only painted a handful of Polar Bears. This is an 18x24" painting that I also cannot remember the title of. It's funny that I can remember the sizes of these old paintings, but not the titles of them.

Back in the good ol days, I did a lot of ballpoint pen, (Bic Fine Point) drawings. I quit doing them when I realized that the ink fades over time, and I could not in good conscience charge money for something with such a short life span. I traded this one to another artist for some of his limited edition prints. I did'nt feel bad because prints fade away also.

Caribou on Parade, 16x20". This was a popular painting that got lots of positive responses from people.

Polar Bear Peak, 16x12". This is more of a landscape painting, which I seldom do. It is set in the upper Eagle River Valley.

This is my favorite Gray Jay painting. I forget it's name, but it's 20x16", or 24x18'. I guess I can't remember it's size either.

I did a series of exotic bird paintings inspired by my trips to Costs Rica. This is a 12x16", Speckled Tanager that I gave a spanish name, Tangara Moteada.

This 11x14", Barred Antshrike is titled, The Jailbird. It's plumage is black and white, striped like old time prison clothes, and the branches behind the bird look a little like iron bars.

A 10x8" painting of a Long-tailed Hermit, (hummingbird) raiding a spider's web. They steal both tiny insects, and silk for nesting material.

A 10x8", Collared Redstart. This is a cute, inhabitant of the mountainous cloud forest.

African Lions, 16x20". I also forget the name of this one. I wanted to go to Africa, and see lions in the wild for decades before I actually got to do it.

11x14", Elk titled who knows what. This painting was stolen from the gallery where it was hanging, but not before I got a 4x5" transparancy of it. It was used as a Canadian Provincial Conservation Stamp, so I did make a little money off it.
My hero, Robert Bateman saw it and said he really liked it. What a thrill. I have had the priviledge of seeing my artwork included in two art shows that featured his work as well. I'll have another show with his work, (and all the big names in wildlife art) next Summer. I can't wait.

18x24" Bald Eagle, I forget the name, but I do like the painting. I even remember who got this one, a local doctor.

People Are Strange

2011-09-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

Is'nt that an old song by the Doors? Way back before the days of digital, and before I got in the habit of having my artwork professionally photographed, I tried to photograph my own work. Using either slide film or print, I accumulated a collection of photos of my own paintings. The prints, I put into the photo album above.
One day years ago I was preparing for a big art show here in Anchorage. One of my regular collectors called me up and asked if I was going to have any Elk paintings at the show. It so happened that I had a nice Elk painting, but it was hanging in a gallery out of town.
I told him about the painting and I told him I would bring a photo of it to the show. Then I grabbed the photo album and brought it with me to the show. I placed the photo album off to the side, on the table in my display.

Almost as soon as the show opened, a woman came by and zeroed in on the photo album. She opened it up, and carefully studied every photo in the album. She completely ignored the actual artwork in the display.
At one point she pointed to one of the paintings and said, "I would really like to see this painting".

I pointed to the actual painting that happened to be hanging right in front of her. She glanced at it for a few seconds, and went back to studying the photo. I thought that her behavior was so odd.
After she left, someone else started flipping throught the photo album. Then another, and another. Many people would say they wanted to see one painting or another. When I pointed to the real painting, they all did exactly as the first woman.
Other people ignored the photo album, and looked at the artwork itself. As in all art shows, most people walked past without even glancing at the display. Why come to an art show, and walk throught it without even stopping? Most people do just that. People are strange.

Sometimes there was even a line of people waiting to look at the photo album, and completely ignoring the original artwork. Eventually I started politely asking people why they spent so much time looking at photos, but would'nt look at the actual paintings? They all got a flustered look on their face, and abrubtly left without answering.

To this day I am baffled by all this. Eventually I put the photo album under the table so people would have to deal with the raw paintings. So, what do you think about this? I would really like to get some feedback if anyone has any insights about why people could relate to photographs, but not original art.

Anyway, these are all photos of those old paintings from the photo album. This is a 16x20", Snowshoe Hare called, Snowbunny.

Townsend's Warbler, 11x14". It is set in fall colors, but Townsend's Warblers are already gone from around here by the time fall comes around. They are not common around here at all.

A detail of a 5x12" painting of Harlequin Ducks.

No Man's Land, 14x18". These are Mountain Goats.

Barn Owl, 20x16". Remember that these are second or third generation photographs, so they lose a lot of the quality of the original paintings. There is a lot of delicate detail in the owl's face in the actual painting.

Coyote and Bison, 15x30". If you see enough of my paintings, you will see recurring themes in many of them. This is one of my all time favorite paintings.

Javelina, 11x14". (Collared Peccaries). Many of the paintings in this album, were painted long before I moved to Alaska.

Sitka Black-tailed Deer, 18x24". They have small antlers, compared to other deer species. There is now a bank in the spot where this painting is set.

This 14x18" Snowshoe Hare marked a milestone in my painting career. It is one of the last Gouache paintings I did before I switched exclusively to acrylics. It is also one of my best Gouaches. I was painting way above my skill level when I did this one.
There are enough good paintings in that old album, that deserve to be included in another blog post. Stay tuned.

Autumn Colors Along the Coast

2011-09-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today I took the time to monitor the seasonal changes along the Coastal Trail. Magpies are ubiquitous and I usually ingnore them, but the antics of these three caught my attention.

When I stopped to photograph them, they came right up to me. They were at my feet, walking all around me. Hoping for a handout, no doubt.

Although the day was gray and cool, there was good color saturation to show off the fall colors.

It was high tide while I was there, so I could get close enough to photograph these juvenile Common Mergansers off the shore.

Presumably this is a juvenile, Northern Shoveler. Like I said before, moulting males look like females, and so do juvenile males. Most of the adult ducks have probably migrated south already, so I assume that most of the ducks I see are juveniles. There were lots of ducks around today.

There was also a lonely, juvenile Sandhill Crane right where I saw three adults a few weeks ago.

Adult sandhills are far from being colorful birds, but this young bird was downright drab. It closely matches the color of it's surroundings.

Now I have some pretty good photos of adult, and juvenile sandhills, I still would like to get good photos of the birds in flight, and engaging in their courtship displays.

I've been seeing more Lesser Scaups lately than I have ever seen in Alaska. This bird could be an adult male coming out of it's annual moult, or a juvenile male coming into it's adult plummage. You can tell this from a Greater Scaup by it's steep forehead. There are other field marks to distinguish them that are not evident in this photo.
Other birders have reported seeing a dramatic increase in the number of Pine Siskins this summer. Could it be climate change affecting the local bird distribution?

I'm about 90% positive that I got a lifer today. There have been reports of several Thayer's Gulls in the area. To tell the truth, I am not really clear about what field marks to look for. When I saw this gull, I assumed it was a non-breeding Herring Gull. It was being very cooperative and I could have gotten many good photos of it.
Since I thought it was just another Herring Gull I only took two quick shots from the picnic table where I was eating lunch at Spenard Crossing. Now I see from the amount of dusky gray on it's head and neck, it is more consistent with a non-breeding Thayer's Gull, a new bird for me. I'll study the photos a little more before I decide what it is.

Along with elevated numbers of Lesser Scaup, and Pine Siskins, today I saw far more Gadwalls than I have ever seen in one day. There were hundreds where I'm lucky to see three or four. It is obvious that this is a male, but is it an adult coming out of it's moult, or a juvenile achieving adult plummage?

These two are juvenile females. I shot all of these photos from the picnic table.

A female and male, (hen and drake) Gadwalls in mid moult.

A footbridge over Chester Creek near Spenard Crossing.

I climbed this nice, covered staircase that leads up out of the Chester Creek Greenbelt. The end of another pleasant day.

Beam Me Up Scotty!

2011-09-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

Scott Christy and his wife Jean Tam are longtime friends here in Anchorage. They have an airplane, and a small cabin on the remote outer coast of the Kenai Peninsula. The cabin is reached by float plane in the Summer months, and skis on the plane in the Winter.
These photos were all taken by Scott. The photo above shows the typical glacier lake habitat near their cabin. I did an older post about my visit to the cabin, but Scott has some better photos, and it's definitely worth a second look.

While flying in from Anchorage, the plane passes over numerous small lakes and waterfalls that are pretty much inaccessible to people.

Who would'nt want a vacation cabin with a view like this? The cabin is location near the shore of Big Johnstone Lake with Excelsior Glacier feeding it. It is a cold place. The cabin is actually back in the trees where it is protected from the blast of cold air that eminates from the glacier.

Big Johnstone Lake is connected to the ocean via a short river. Harbor Seals lounge on the icebergs in the freshwater lake because it offers them protection from Orcas. I'm not sure if they catch fish in the lake.

Scott and Jean have a Zodiac which they use to travel around the lake and down the river to the sea. It gives them the opportunity to get great photographs of the constantly changing ice formations on the lake.

Scott's photos may be spectacular, but actually being there is truly breathtaking. Glowing blue everywhere.

The place is located in coastal temperate rainforest. It will typicaly rain solid for a week or a month, then have one day of sunshine, and then back to the rain. Nevertheless it is a magical place.

Where's the Polar Bear? It is too far south for them, but Black Bears are abundant in the area. A few grizzlies too.

A rare sunny day in the rainforest, with a beautiful lake in the background.

Taking the Zodiac along the river from the lake to the ocean.

Jean holds up dinner.

More salmon destined for the freezer or the fish smoker. Personally, I hate fish, including fresh caught, or smoked salmon. My friends make me eat them all the time anyway. Everyone around here always has a freezer full of salmon. It's a rough life. I'll take moose meat any day, but I'm grateful for people's hospitality.

Two Quiet Days and a New Painting

2011-09-11T00:19:00.000-07:00

Someone reported seeing a Buff-breasted Sandpiper on the mudflats off south Anchorage. I live on he edge of town in north Anchorage, ten or fifteen miles away. Since there are mudflats so much closer, I seldom ever go to south Anchorage.
About ten years ago I went to a natural area called John's Park in south Anchorage. I thought I remembered it being located on a bluff overlooking the coastal mudflats. I thought that maybe I could access the mudflats from there. Since I have not seen a Buff-breasted Sandpiper, I took a day to look for it on Thursday.
The photo above is John's Park. It was pretty quiet. Only a Red Squirrel, chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and a single Magpie.

While I was at John's Park, I asked a few people about getting down to the mudflats. They told me that the best way to get down there was from a spot about two miles away. I walked along the trail, then Shore Drive until I reached the place in the photo above. It overlooks Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet. The mountains in the photo are on the Kenai Peninsula.

I worked my way down onto the grassy area between the bluff and the mudflats. It looks like solid ground, but my feet immediately sank into six inches of wet ooze. It smelled just like raw sewage. It took a lot of effort to trudge through the muck. After making it only about halfway across the grass, I gave up and turned back. There were no birds whatsoever, and the wind was howling, (typical of south Anchorage, look at the trees in the photo). A waste of a day, but some pretty scenery.

Today I decided to look for the Common Black-headed Gull for the third time, so I went to my usual area along the Coastal trail. No luck because the gulls were way out on the mudflats, and I dont have a spotting scope.
I did see the weasel again though I could not manage any photos. The photo above is a pair of sleeping greenwings in their usual slough next to Westchester Lagoon.

A female, or juvenile Shoveler on Westchester.

At this time of year, ducks are hard to sex because males are moulting, and look like females, the young have reached full size and also look like females. So this is either a juvenile, or female American Widgeon. In a short time, males will reach their prime colors.

Whichever sex it is, I really love it's warm tones.

Another challenging identification is determining the difference between juvenile Common, and Barrow's Goldeneyes. The head shape is supposed to be the key. Barrow's Goldeneyes have a steeper slope to their forehead, and fuller nape. It may be obvious in adult males, but juvenile ducks are far more similar to one another.

The previous duck looks more like a Barrow's Goldeneye to me, while this one looks more like a Common Goldeneye. They were right next to one another. I am not at all confident as to their exact species. Any thoughts on the subject?
Anyway I saw the usual Mallards and Canada Geese. The Bald Eagle was not in it's tree. It was out on the mudflats. Only two Greater Yellowlegs, no dowitchers or cranes. Things are starting to quiet down around here. If you go to the Coastal Trail during the winter, you usually see absolutely no wildlife at all.

This is the latest painting, More Tufted Puffins, 11x14". It is unusual for me to be in the mood to paint puffins. I have a hard time coming up with an interesting way to portray them. The rocks are a lot funner to paint than the birds themselves.

I should have done the painting with more delicate detail work. I just did'nt have the patience.

The Quimbie's Photos

2011-09-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

Back when I first moved to Alaska in 1997, The members of the Quimby family were amoung the first people to befriend me. There are not finer people anywhere. Most of these photos were taken by Bart. He is a professor of engineering at ASU. He is also an avid, (fanatical) hiker.
This first series of photos are some Dall Sheep that he saw on one of his hikes in the Chugach Mountains. He gave me permission to use his photos as reference photos for my paintings. The ewe in the photo above was not very shy.

Dall sheep live high amoung the clouds. They rolled in while Bart was photographing this ewe.

I really like the majesty of this photo.

Bart was able to work his way closer to them.

A ewe with an older lamb.

One small 8x10" painting of a Dall Ram that was partially inspired by Bart's photos.

Bart is a few years older than me, but the years when I could climb to an overlook like this are long past me. The young man in the photo is Bart's nephew. They climbed up the backside of Eklutna Peak in the Chugach Mountains. Probably twenty miles of nearly straight up and down hiking.

Near the top they spotted this Wolverine. A once in a lifetime sighting.

I can only dream about getting a photo like this.

This is the 16x20" painting that was inspired by those photos. I traded this painting for a pair of Lieca binoculars. Liecas are the best quality binos that they make.

Bart's brother was incredibly lucky to spot this Mountain Goat crossing the Kenai River.

Bart's wife Sandy shot this photo of Bart and yours truly canoeing down the Eagle River.

We stopped for lunch and Sandy shot this photo of bart taking a nap while I birded in the background.

She also got this photo of a Belted Kingfisher just taking flight.

And this photo of a salmon drifting up to Bart's leg.

My Most Famous Paintings

2011-09-03T23:53:00.000-07:00

Some years ago, while I was still living in Lakeside, Arizona, a local t-shirt company hired me to design some of their t-shirts. They had an idea to market t-shirts to fire departments all over the country. Thay asked me to paint a fireman with an axe, facing a fire-breathing dragon inside a burning building. Around the design was a border that said, International Brotherhood of Dragonslayers.

They showed me a design that some other artist had done of the same thing in a fire-fighting magazine. I knew that I was walking a fine line with plagiarism, so I changed my version considerably. When the t-shirt people saw it, they told me to make it look more like the magazine ad.

I told them that we would get sued if we did that. They had me do it anyway. Sure enough, the t-shirt company got a cease and desist letter from a law office as soon as they tried to market the t-shirt.

They consulted an attorney of their own, and instructed me to go back to my original design. They agreed to pay me fifty cents per shirt sold. They could not keep up with the demand for their shirts, and I thought I was set for life.

After a few months they saw that they were working day and night to keep up, while I was pocketing thousands of dollars without lifting a finger. So they changed the deal, and dropped my cut in half. I really did'nt complain too bitterly. Over a period of several years, I made a lot of money from a design that I spent two days working on. Eventually the market became saturated, and sales dropped way off. We changed designs, and marketing strategies, but the good times were over.

Unfortunately, I never even kept a copy of that t-shirt. The Desert Iguana above is another design I did. It was never marketed. I just made it for my own pleasure. It was done like a photographic negative by making black dots on a piece of vellum paper. That was burned onto a silk screen. Then white ink was spread over the silk screen on top of a black t-shirt. It has only lasted this long because I never wear it.

The years passed by and I moved to Alaska. Nevertheless, I had learned the lession. The real money in art comes from mass media, not individual sales of original art. I tried my hand at limited edition prints. Unfortunately, I came too late to that game.

There are so many artists making prints, that there are more available art prints, than there are walls to hang them on. Nobody wants them anymore, so I quit trying to make them. I did do designs for collector plates for The Hamilton Collection. That paid for my first trip to Costa Rica.

The painting above is a small 8x10" Black Bear called, The Cave Bear. I sent it to a publishing company called Wildwings, in Minnesota. They put it in their Fall Festival Art Show, but it did'nt sell. They made a copy of it and sent it back to me.

Next I sent it to Gary's gallery in Homer and sold it for $400.oo. Decent money for one small painting. In the meantime, Wildwings licensed the image to other companies, and they also put it on designer tins for their own catalog. In the intervening years I have made some decent money from that painting, and royalty checks keep on coming.

It is life-saving income during hard times like these when nothing else is happening career-wise. I have had a number of images reproduced in many ways. I have seen my own artwork displayed far and wide, on many different products. It always gives me a momentary thrill. Sometimes the lamest looking design, makes the most money. There is no rhyme or reason to it that I can see.

This is another painting, that I sold in Gary's gallery. It was used by a nationally famous company on their calendar. That company shall remain nameless because they stiffed me on the payment. My complaints fell on deaf ears. So it goes.

This painting, Mother's Day, 18x24" was used in another calendar. I did get paid for this, and another painting in the same calendar. It was also used on a Canadian Provincial Conservation Stamp. The original painting still has not sold, but at least I made some money from it.

This 12x16" Red Fox painting was also used as a Canadian Conservation Stamp. The original was purchased by Jared Something or other, the host of Animal Planet. Other celebrities and vip types have also bought my paintings. Not too modest, am I?

I used this painting of a Montezuma's Quail to trade for lodging in the famous ecolodge, Tandayapa, owned by Tropical Birding in Ecuador. It was used as cover art for their annual catalog.

I traded this Plate-billed Mountain Toucan for a stay at another Ecuadorian ecolodge, Las Gralarias.

This painting was also used as a Canadian Conservation Stamp.

Same with this one. Another painting that has yet to sell.

The main reason for this post is to talk about this painting, Pink Ears, 12x16". I painted it last November, and have not shown it anywhere. I did enter a photo of it into the annual, Artists For Conservation contest and show. AFC is the premier nature artist organization that limits it's worldwide membership to 500 artists.

All the big names in wildlife, and outdoor art are part of it. Somehow I got accepted as well. This painting was chosen to be part of the show, and to appear in their annual book.

I'm about to ship the painting to Grouse Mountain Resort in Vancouver B.C. That is where the show will be held this year. Next it will go to the wonderful, Arizona Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson. I have been there many times. A GREAT place. From there I forget where the show goes, but it will travel for about a year. Good exposure.

I have also had my work make it into the finals of the Fedreal Duck Stamp contest, and the Arts for the Parks contests. Both of them had travelling shows that were very good for an artist's publicity.

So I'm bragging about myself now to give me some encouragement when the art market appears to be dead in the water around here.

Loons and Stuff

2011-08-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today I took the time to visit some areas that I have neglected lately. Right in the middle of Anchorage is a natural area where there are forest trails and two lakes. The University of Alaska is also there. That is why one of the lakes is called University Lake.

The other lake is Goose Lake, and it is one of several lakes in town that hosts nesting loons, rather than geese. Pacific Loons are the species that occupy Goose Lake.

There are Common Loons on some of the larger lakes, especially on the military base. Anchorage is the biggest city that boasts nesting loons.

The first place I checked out yesterday was University Lake above. It was beautiful, but I was dismayed to see the first sign of fall colors in some of the trees. Alaska typically has very short autumns, and then comes the endless winter.

There was'nt much on University Lake, just some Mallards, R.N. Grebes, and a few Muskrats. So I followed a trail through the forest, over to Goose Lake. The forest floor above is covered in a layer of green moss.

Someone has been busy taking down trees next to the lake. This is the handiwork of a beaver. This summer beavers have been causing a stir because they were attacking people's dogs when they tried to play in the water.

I forget the name of this kind of mushroom. It's not very poisonous, but not tasty either.

Bunchberries are not so tasty either.

There were not very many passerines in the forest, chickadees, redpolls, juncos, magpies, and these recently fledged, Pine Siskins.

Finally I made it to Goose Lake, and saw the resident pair of Pacific Loons. Their hatchlings were taken by a predator this year. Almost undoubtedly a Bald Eagle is the culprit. In some years, eagles take every single loon chick. It is very discouraging because loons are slow to breed, and their numbers are steadily dropping. They never lay more than two eggs at a time.

Loons are shy, and usually stay out in the middle of the lake. It is hard to get close to them. These photos were all taken from a distance.

They are way cool. There are sometimes Red-throated Loons just offshore in Anchorage. I have never gotten close enough for even a single photo.

Loons in turn, prey upon the young of grebes and ducks. That's why I was surprized to find this juvenile, Red-necked Grebe on Goose Lake. Loons usually drive off the adult grebes on their lakes, so they cannot breed where loons are. Maybe this bird flew in from another lake.

Ducks are prolific breeders by comparison, and they overwhelm the loons by their sheer numbers. That is why the loons tolerate the presense of ducks on their lakes. Including these Mallards.

I was stumped for awhile by the identity of these two, very dark ducks on Goose Lake. After consulting the field guide, I figured out that they are juvenile, Lesser Scaup.

One last loon photo. The reason for disparity in the lighting of these photos, is because it was suuny yesterday with harsh light. Today was overcast, and drizzly. The Coomon Loon photo was taken years ago with slide film.

It Keeps Getting Better

2011-08-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

After a week of cool and rainy weather, the sun came out today. It was about 15 degrees colder than the last time I hit the Coastal Trail, but it sure felt good to me. This time there was no weasel, but I shot this photo of a bumblebee on a Dandelion flower. The size comparision shows how diminutive our Alaska bumblebees are.

It may not look like it, but this bird is in serious trouble. At least it's species is. Can you guess what it is? It's overall population has dropped by about 90% in the last few decades. There have been many studies to understand why, but no cause is apparent. Most researchers believe that the problem lies somewhere on the bird's wintering grounds in the Midwest.

There were about a half dozen Rusty Blackbirds next to Westchester Lagoon today. The first I have seen in a number of years. They were still easy to find when I first moved to Alaska 14 years ago. The bird above is a female, or a subadult male.

Nearby, there was this Belted Kingfisher, along with one Greater Yellowlegs and an unidentified peep. Also Greenwings, Mallards, Widgeons, Shovelers, and scaups.

There were also some subadult Bonaparte's Gulls. Someone reported seeing a Common Black-headed Gull, (Old World species). It looks the same, but has a red bill. I looked for it, but did'nt see it.

I was delighted to find 3 Sandhill Cranes on the mudflats. This time, the light was good, and the cranes were only about 100 ft, (30 meters) away from the trail.

There were 4 of them here in the springtime. The same birds minus one? Probably not. Someone saw 9 more of them further down the trail today

.A small crowd of bicyclists and hikers gathered to watch the cranes. I honestly believe that most of them never would have noticed the cranes if I was'nt there, snapping photos like a madman.

It's hard to imagine that I could ever get a better photographic opportunity with Sandhill Cranes. That does'nt mean that I won't keep on taking photos of them. I wanted to get some shots of them with their wings spread. They would not oblige me.

There is a low fence beside the trail that conceals the lower half of people. I think that barrier is why these cranes were so unconcerned by all the people.

When you get this kind of opportunity, you have to keep shooting photos. I took at least 80 photos of the cranes. I got so many great shots that I would like to post, but these photos will suffice.

Within a stone's throw, (literally) of the cranes, the Bald Eagle was on the other side of the trail. It was in the same tree where I saw it on the last several visits to the area. This time it had some company.

Four tourists from out of state showed me another approach to the eagle tree. In the dozens of visits that I have made to the place, how is it that I never noticed that little side path?

Mt. Mckinley, North America's highest peak, was visible across Cook Inlet. It is only visible from Anchorage about a half dozen times a year. I think that it is about 265 miles away from Anchorage as the crow flies.

A Canada Goose family on Westchester. The adults are in the front and the back. The young goslings already have their adult plummage. There were lots of good birds today. Monday is predicted to be even warmer. Will I waste another day at the Coastal Trail? I ought to go somewhere else for loons and swans. Maybe I'll just stay home and paint. Decisions, decisions.

A New Duck Painting

2011-08-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

This is mostly about Greater Scaup. Before moving to Alaska, I had only ever seen one Greater Scaup because the Lesser Scaup was the predominate scaup in Arizona. In the photo above, a female Greater Scaup is being pursued by some male suitors at Spenard Crossing in Anchorage. There were nine males in all. They were practically drowning that poor female in their romantic ardor. She must have been absolutely exhausted by all the attention.

Another view of the same incident. Only the most dominate males got close to the hen. Other males kept flying in to try to displace them.

Eventually one male won the hen. He finally let her rest.

The possessive drake kept all other ducks at bay, by positioning himself between his hen and the intruder. Even this Canada Goose was herded away from the hen..

Along with a pair of Greater Scaup, my new painting includes the sleeping Mallard on the left. I shot this photo late last summer at Spenard Crossing. The little squirt in the middle of the photo is a greenwing.

This is the new 9x12" painting. No title yet. The ducks were originally more brightly colored. As an afterthought, I applied a light wash to create some atmosphere. It almost sucked the life out of the painting.

A detail of the ducks.

Even closer. The drake Lesser Scaup has heavier, dark vermiculations on it's back than this Greater Scaup. It also has a purple sheen to it's black head, instead of the greenish sheen of the Greater Scaup.

Since this is a short post, I'll include this photo of a Common Goldeneye. I like the water droplets on it's back.

I'll end this post with a nice shot of a Northern Shoveler. All of these ducks were photographed at Spenard crossing. Spenard Crossing is seperated from Westchester Lagoon by Minnesota Drive, one of Anchorage's busiest roads. There are two tunnels that allow pedestrians to cross between the two wetlands without creating a traffic hazard.

Spenard Crossing, and Westchester Lagoon are the best places that I have been to for getting close to wild waterfowl.

Whitefronts

2011-08-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

This all started with a visit to Palmer Hay Flats, a wildlife refuge about 35 miles from Anchorage. Pre 1964, the place was farmland where hay was harvested. During the big 8.9 earthquake of 64 the land dropped by about 4ft, and became too boggy for farming.

In a short time, waterfowl and shorebirds started utilizing the newly created habitat, so it was eventually turned into a refuge. Both Anchorage Audubon, and the Matsu Bird Club hold annual field trips there in the springtime at the height of migration. We see swans, 3 species of geese, numerous duck species, Sandhill Cranes, and various shorebirds. There are raptors like Northern Harriers, Bald Eagles, Peregrines, Short-eared Owls and more. Passerines like Lapland Longspurs, redpolls, sparrows, etc.

I have used the photo above as a setting for several paintings. The best of them was a 24x48" canvas of Snow Geese that sold for a tidy sum. Unfortunately I have no digital photographs of that painting.

I do have a photo of this small 8x10" Caribou painting called Distance. It uses the same backdrop as the Snow Geese painting. It sold for a much more modest sum.

These White-fronted, and Canada Geese were at Spenard Crossing in the spring several years ago. Both species are also seen at the hayflats along with the Snow Geese.

A nice portrait of a Whitefront. They usually do not allow such close-up views.

In 2007 I painted this one, using the same backdrop. It took a lot of work to paint all these whitefronts, but I was never happy with the painting. Since I put so much work into the painting, I really wanted to find a way to make it look better.

First I decided that the bird's reflections did nothing for the painting so I made them go away by raising the hieght of the sedges. Then I put a pale wash over the background and geese. It's still not right.

Since I felt I had nothing to lose, I decided to be a little bolder with my washes. Not good. Oh well.

I'm tired of remodeling old paintings. Now I'm working on something new.

I'll end this post with a nice photo I shot in the field next to my place last fall. Maybe it will be the inspiration for a future painting.

A Weasel and Other Good Things on a Hot Day

2011-08-17T01:36:00.000-07:00

Today was probably the hottest day of the year. It was a boiling 75f. Although I think it was an ideal day, most Alaskans were complaining. What wimps. They should have been with me in Murchison NP in March.

I forced myself to stay home and work most of the day, but I could'nt let the whole day go to waste.

At about 4:00 pm I arrived at the Coastal Trail. Right away I saw a bird flying past rapidly, like it was being pursued by a predator. I became alert and saw the Short-tailed Weasel above. It was in the pile of rocks and logs that keep the trail from sinking into the mud.

What a delightful find. It's been about a decade since I've seen a weasel. It was popping in and out of the boulders at a frenetic pace. Very difficult to photograph. Short-tailed Weasels turn white in winter and are called Ermines then. Someone else photographed a wolf on the Coastal Trail today but I missed it.

In the same slough where I've been seeing so many shorebirds lately, I got confused by what I saw. The bird on the left is a Greater Yellowlegs. The bird on the right is a little smaller like a Lesser Yellowlegs. Then what is the little guy in the front? Finally I figured out that it was a solitary Sandpiper. I have'nt seen one since May.

Here is a good size comparision between a Greater Yellowlegs, and a Solitary Sandpiper.

There were at least two Solitary Sandpipers in the slough. Also a Muskrat, and some Greenwings.

The Bald Eagle was in the same tree where I saw it before. This time I was able to find a way to get closer without tresspassing. It was contentedly preening in this photo.

Someone told me that it had a nest nearby, and that two young eagles fledged just this week.

Way out on the mudflats I saw this small raptor. All I could see from so great a distance was the rust colored breast. Even though it was way out in the open, I had myself convinced that it was a Sharp-shinned Hawk. They tend to be forest birds.

I got as close to it as I could. When I got home and cropped the photos, I could see it was a Merlin.

These are the only photos of a Merlin that I have been able to get. They are certainly pathetic compared to Amber's great photos.

Today there were many more spawning Silver Salmon than last week.

There was nobody fishing for them today.

A little way upstream from them I heard a large animal moving through the forest along the Chester Creek Greenbelt. I was thinking bear (they follow the salmon),but when I looked intently into the trees I could not find whatever made the noise.

I did find this very cooperative, Belted Kingfisher beside Chester Creek. This is probably the best Belted Kingfisher photo I have been able to get. What a beauty. Today was without doubt, one of the best days of the summer.

Coyote Reborn, and some Bugs

2011-08-13T22:02:00.000-07:00

In 2006 I completed this 16x20" Coyote painting titled, Golden Light. It was chosen to be displayed for a year in the prestigeous, George Phippen Art Museum in Arizona. Although it was not for sale while it was in the museum show, I hoped that it would generate some interest from art collectors. No one ever contacted me about it.

It sat in storage for years until I put it into the facelift stack. I loved the Coyote itself but the foreground was too heavy handed. Especially the grasses.

The first thing I did was block out everything except the Coyote itself.

Next I re-painted the background using richer, darker colors than the original version. Then I roughed in the Coyote's legs.

Because of the strong contrasts in the composition, I had to make endless minor adjustments, toning down, or brightening up various parts of the painting. At some point I had to decide that it was finished. Now it looks almost nothing like the original version.

The remodel easily took more time than it took to paint it the first time around. I'm considering changing the name. I'm toying with, Lean Mean Coyote Machine. What do you think? Is it too lame?

Yesterday I took a few minutes to photograph some insects in a field near my home. In the above photo, a bumblebee is gathering pollen next to a small fly. I'm grateful that there are almost no houseflies around here. Also no fleas, ticks, cockroaches, or any insect pests except mosquitos.

We have no scorpions, centipedes, crickets, or dangerous spiders. Our butterflies and grasshoppers are few and far between, and very small. We also have very few ants. I do wish that we had cool bugs like walking sticks, and preying mantids.

Most dragonflies are also very small. the one full sized dragonfly is almost black in color.

When you get a close look, you can see more colors.

Some Kingfishers, an Eagle, and More

2011-08-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

Today was, and still is, one of the nicest days of the summer. I could not stay indoors. It's easier to get to either Russian Jack Park, or the Coastal Trail, than it is to other natural areas in the vicinity. So those are the places I visit the most. I especially love to note the gradual changes that come with the seasons.

The Coastal Trail has greater wildlife diversity than Russian Jack, so that's where I went today. It's about 5 miles from my home. I saw at least 5 Belted Kingfishers today. They may have all belonged to the same family. Only one posed for photos. It was near the slough where I recently photographed a greenwing and some shorebirds.

I could not get nearly as close to it as I wanted. I did get to watch it hovering, but I was too slow on the draw to get any photos.

A Bald Eagle perched near the kingfisher that posed for me. I could not get close to the eagle either. It was on private property.

I'm pretty sure these dragonflies were 'wrestling'.

There was still a Green-winged Teal in the same little slough where I saw it last time I went there.

This time it was accompanied by it's young. I'm thinking this may actually be another greenwing.

There were four babies in total. There were also two adult female greenwings, but only one stayed close to the babies.

There was only one Greater Yellowlegs in the slough, where there had been about a dozen a week ago. No Lesser Yellowlegs, Least Sandpipers, or dowitchers.

There were still some Short-billed Dowitchers on the island in Westchester Lagoon. They are the larger of the shorebirds in the photo. I can only surmize that the smaller shorebirds are Dunlins.

Three female Greater Scaup joined all their young together, presumably for greater protection from predators, like the eagle. about a third of the babies were underwater at any given time.

The harsh light made it difficult to get pleasing photographs.

You can see by the size differences between some of the babies that they are from different broods.

There were several baby Red-necked Grebes on Westchester Lagoon as well.

There were also spawning Silver, (Coho) Salmon. Only one person was there fishing for them.

A Great Gray Owl and an Old Bear Story

2011-08-08T23:33:00.000-07:00

I'll start with the bear story. I'm writing about it now because because I'm bored and too tired to do anything else more ambitious.

Right after I moved to Alaska, two of my Arizona friends, Jody and Richard, came up to visit me in Eagle River. We wanted to do some birding in the area so I called the Rare Bird Hotline to see if there was anything unusual to look for. It reported that a Black-backed Woodpecker nest had been found in Hillside Park in Anchorage. Black-backed Woodpeckers tend to be very difficult to find.

We went to the park and saw a warning sign that a Grizzly Bear had been seen in the park a few days previously. You see signs like this all over the place in the summer months, so I ignored it, thinking the bear had certainly moved on by now.

We walked no more than a hundred yards, (meters) along the main trail when we saw some Varied Thrushes. I was trying to get a good look at them and I heard a huff come from the thick bushes on the opposite side of the trail. I assumed it was a moose, and the thrushes were more interesting to me, so I did'nt even look for the moose.

Jody and Richard were more vigilant and they urgently whispered to me,"Brown Bear". I looked and saw the bear poking it's head out of the bushes only about 25 ft away. Astonishingly the bear walked forward and came right towards us.

We instinctively huddled close together and hurried along the trail as fast as we could walk. The bear followed us, and it occured to me that I had my camera in my knapsack. While we walked I took off the pack and retrieved my camera.

Unfortunately the wide angle lens was on the camera, not the telephoto. I managed three photos, and the photo above is the best of the lot. We met up with five tourists from Oregon, coming up the trail in the opposite direction. We all joined together, and stopped to hold our ground. The bear looked at us like a big puppy that wanted to play. It soon wandered off into the forest.

After all that excitement we still managed to find the Black-backed Woodpecker nest, and a Three-toed Woodpecker nest. I have'nt seen another BB Woodpecker in about a dozen years.

The Great Gray Owl is another old story. During the winter nine or ten years ago I called the local Rare Bird Hotline again. It reported a pair of Great Gray Owls in Earthquake Park in Anchorage. I headed right over there.

It was cold and I searched the area for about two hours, nothing. It was starting to get dark, my face, hands and feet were getting numb, and I had a meeting to get to. As I was leaving the park I ran into another birder that I recognized, so I accompanied him back into the park. In a short time we spotted the bird in the photo above.

I was shooting with slide film in those days, and the owl was at the limits of my camera's flash capacity.

It was truly an impressive sight. A woman about 50 yards away called out that she was looking at the other GG Owl. I thought to myself, "I'm looking at this owl right in front of me, why bother go to look at the other one"?

This remains the only Great Gray Owl that I've seen, and I regret that I did'nt go over to see the other owl.

Anyway, I still had time that evening to get some tacos, and make it to the meeting on time.

The Boar Tide and the Merlin

2011-08-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

After nearly a week of rainy days, we finally had some sunshine. I could not pass up the opportunity to head to the beach.

When I arrived, there were actually waves just offshore. They are not ordinary waves, they are a phenomenon called a Boar Tide, (I'm not sure of the spelling). At certain times of the year there are more dynamic tides than usual. When the tide comes in, it creates a strong current that builds waves.

The waves may not look so dramatic, but the current is very dangerous for small boats.

Although the main push of southbound shorebirds is over, there are still plenty of yellowlegs, and dowitchers like the above photo.

These birds are mostly, if not all, Short-billed Dowitchers.

A Greater Yellowlegs on Chester Creek.

A Short-billed Dowitcher, and a Lesser Yellowlegs.

The Short-billed dowitchers will only be around here for another week or so. Most of the migratory birds have already left. Even though it's early August, there was a bit of a chill in the air today. Boo hoo!

Our bumblebees are barely larger than honeybees. This one visits the flowers of a plant called Vetch. It is an invasive plant species.

A glaucous-winged Gull hides amoung Fireweed while a Mallard dozes on Westchester Lagoon. At this point, my camera's batteries died, and my back-up batteries had lost their charge as well.

It's too bad that I had no batteries because I saw a Merlin on the way home. It perched nearby.

I did not take the photo above, or those that follow. Amber, who works at Keller's Photography, shot these photos right next to the parking lot of the studio. Keller's photographs my paintings so I can send high resolution images of them to publishing companies.

The Merlin killed a pigeon nearby and plucked it, and started eating it in the weeds beside the parking lot.

In this photo the Merlin mantles it's kill to keep Amber from stealing it.

Amber graciously put her photos on a cd for me, and gave me permission to use them for reference photos for paintings.

High Country Critters

2011-08-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

A while back I went on a hike in the hills around Independence Mine State Park with my friend Brody and his sons. Independence Mine is well above timberline, near Hatcher's Pass above Palmer, Alaska.

I forget the particulars about when the mine closed and what was mined there. Some of the buildings are still in good condition, while others lie in ruins.

I know from experience that this abandoned mine complex is a supreme location for telling ghost stories. We had Brodie's sons trembling with fear even in the daytime. Even I would probably be scared to hear horror stories there at night inside those creaky old buildings.

There are a lot of crumbling structures on the hillsides above the main buildings.

Brodie takes in the view from a vantage above the mine.

We saw this very cute, Collared Pika.

Although I have seen many Pikas over the years, this is the only one I was able to photograph. Pikas do not hibernate. They gather grasses, and other edible plants all summer which they store in rocky crevasses. This is what sustains them through the long winters.

Pikas are about the size of guinea pigs, and have a very loud squeak.

We left the mine behind, and climbed up across the Alpine terrain. These are Brodie's three sons, Ethan, Keaton, and Tate.

Arctic Ground Squirrels are common in the high country. They do hibernate, and put on a great deal of weight in the fall that helps them survive long months underground.

Golden-crowned Sparrows are one of the most common birds found above timberline.

All three ptarmigan species occupy these high slopes. The Rock Ptarmigan above is the most commonly seen species.

I believe that Rock Ptarmigan also occur in alpine areas in Europe. It is my favorite Alaska bird.