Favorite New Birds of 2009

I just read another blog called, The Flying Mullet, that featured a list of the author's top ten new birds of 2009. That got me thinking about my own favorite new birds of this past year. It's too hard for me to list them in order, or to limit the number to only ten birds. All of my lifers this past year were seen in Peru in January and February. I managed to photograph some of them, and I posted those photos last summer. I'll include some of those photos in this post, and add some new photos.

Arguably my favorite lifer of 2009 is the Humboldt Penguin. I have wanted to see penguins for years.

Another cool species I saw on the Islas Ballestas, next to the penguins were Inca Terns.

The Peruvian Thick-knee is a large, nocturnal shorebird that inhabits the barren deserts along Peru's west coast.

The Black-crowned Night Heron was certainly not a new species, but the Belcher's Gulls were.

Another of 5 new gull species in Peru was the Gray-hooded Gull. The others were, Andean, Kelp, and Gray Gulls.

Another west coast bird, Saffron Finch.

Another inhabitant of the desert is the less than colorful, Oasis Hummingbird.

The commonly seen parrot in Lima is the, Red-masked Parakeet

The 5th species of booby that I've seen is the Peruvian Booby.

Wattled Jacanas are very common in the Amazon Basin.

A turkey sized oddity of the Amazon is the Horned Screamer.

One of the few new raptors that I saw was the Black-collared Hawk.

A friendly flycatcher of the cloud forest is the Torrent Tyrannulet.

Black-fronted Nunbirds are another common Amazonian bird.

A bad photograph of a great bird, White-eared Jacamar.

There were Red-capped Cardinals nesting within a few yards of my bungalow on the Amazon River.

White-headed Marsh Tyrants are often found on islands in the Amazon River.

A bird that occurs exclusively on inlands in the Amazon River is the wonderful, little, Red and White Spinetail.

Other favorite lifers I saw but did'nt get good photographs were,

Giant Hummingbird

Great Sapphirewing

Chilean Flamingo

Black-tailed, and Blue-crowned Trogon

Red-bellied Macaw

Slate-colored Hawk

Orange-crowned Mannakin

Chestnut, and Crimson-crested Woodpeckers

I got 100 plus lifers on that trip.

Springbok and random winter photos

One more small painting to bring with me to South Africa. It is an 8x10", mother and calf, Springbok. The painting looks alright but I continue to be frustrated by the digital photos of my paintings. The camera interprets what it sees, differently than the human eye sees. The actual paintings have much more natural tones, and greater detail.

Eagle River Road above the town, looking back toward town.

A snow encrusted moose.

Moose have a reputation for being dangerous. Cow moose with young calfs are dangerous when they feel there is a threat to the calf. Otherwise moose tend to be fairly docile, (at least most of the time). This is an antler-less bull.

My nieghbor's house at night. This is what I see from my balcony.

Another view from the balcony, looking towards the medical clinic next door.

In the same small building as the clinic is the town newspaper, The Alaska Star. You can see the sign behind the bushes.

It will be so nice to escape this when I head for Africa in a few weeks. I may not put up another post for a few months. We shall see if I find time to post from South Africa.

Two African Songbirds

Here are two more paintings I did in anticipation of my upcoming Africa trip.

This is a 10x8" painting of a Red Bishop. These are small seed eating birds that frequent moist grasslands throughout much of Africa. They are also popular cage birds in many countries. They have become established in Hawaii, and some other places as well.

The above painting is a 12x9" Cape Sugarbird. It is an endemic of the southern coast of South Africa. In other words, it only lives in the farthest south region of the African Continent. They survive almost entirely on the nectar of Protea Flowers, which are found along the coast around the cape.

Africa on my Mind

Here in the dead of winter, my thoughts increasingly turn to escape from the cold and dark. One month from today, I will touch down at Johannesburg Int. Airport, and start my month-long safari. Of course I really look forward to seeing the big African animals outside of a zoo setting, but my main interest is in seeing the smaller critters. Especially the birds, and reptiles. I can't wait.
Before each exotic adventure, I like to do a series of small paintings of the wildlife of the region I will be visiting. I take these paintings with me, and either try to sell them to fellow tourists, or to Art galleries. Sometimes I trade them for lodging in some nice ecolodges. Once I was robbed of all my belongings in Costa Rica. The thieves got my passport, credit cards, traveller's checks, driver's license, and worst of all. they got my brand new camera equipment, and my beloved Ziess binoculars. Thankfully the thieves did not have an eye for great art, and they did'nt take my paintings. I was able to sell them to a wonderful little gallery, (Namu), in San Jose. This helped me to continue on my vacation, and return home safely.

This is the first of my Africa paintings, Cat in the Grass, 9x12" It's dangerous to become enamoured with your own work, but I'm happy with this one.

They can't all be winners. The actual painting does look much better than this photo, but it does'nt compare to the Cheetah. It is a Malachite Kingfisher, 8x10". I'll do a few more paintings, and post them on the blog before I leave for South Africa.

Christmas Bird Count, Anchorage

For those of you who may not be familiar with the Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count, it is a volunteer effort to take a census of winter bird populations. The event got started 110 years ago as an alternative to the Christmas Side Hunt. That was a yearly activity where idiots with guns went out on Christmas Day to shoot every bird, and animal they could find. They would load them onto awagons, and at the end of the day, take a tally of who shot the most critters. Most of their victims were never eaten.

Thankfully those days are long over, but the CBC lives on. It has become an important indicator of the health of regional bird populations. I have covered the same area in Anchorage with Owen Hughes, (who is 90) for 13 years.

We always start out at the crack of dawn, 9:30am, in Alaska. We keep going until well after sunset, 3:30pm. Before moving to Alaska, I participated in CBC's in Northern Arizona for many years.

This is where we started our count. It's a tiny park, next to the Chester Creek Greenbelt. The temperature was -5f, -20c, when we left our houses.

The first birds we encountered were Bohemian Waxwings. We counted 163 of them in total. In some years, we get 3000+.

Another photo of little black specks. These are American Robins. We saw 45 in all. That's way more than usual, we are lucky to get even one most years.

Black-billed Magpie.

There were 10 magpies today.

We saw 30 Ravens.

The only other species we saw were 6 Black-capped Chickadees. Five species altogether, that's our all-time low. 14 is our highest number ever. These totals are pathetic compared to the old Arizona counts. Once I participated in a CBC in San Blas, Mexico. We got 300+ species on that day.

The Eagles of Winter

We have had a large dump of snow around here, that has continued for days. The snow in my yard is now thigh deep. The thermometer on my balcony reads -13c, thats +7f. Tomorrow is forcast to be 10 degrees colder. These temps are normal for this time of year, and the scenery is stunning. I've been seeing a lot of Bald Eagles around town. They are being fed by a few people, and many more of them fill their bellies at the city dump. The eagle above was enduring the snowstorm in a nieghbor's yard, yesterday afternoon.

The following photos were shot earlier near the fire station across town. That is where most of the town eagles hang out because an old woman feeds them year after year. This is strictly against the law, but the powere that be, look the other way.

The controversy about feeding eagles is that more eagles survive the winter than would otherwise survive. The artificially elevated eagle population puts extra pressure on traditional prey species in the summer months, when the eagles are not being fed. Nesting loons, and Sandhill Cranes, suffer the brunt of eagle depredations.

Volunteers monitor nesting loons around Anchorage, and the Matsu Valley. In some years, eagles snatch every single loon chick. The loon poulation is steadily dropping. The same thing is happening with the local crane population. That is why many conservation minded people hate the fact that eagles are being fed in the winter months. The number of eagles that feed at the dump is even greater. Another controversial practice is the rehabilitation of injured eagles. These eagles are released locally when they have recovered, and that adds to the problem. In spite of all that, it's great to see eagles up close.

The Futile Pursuit of Perfection

When I was younger, often I would longingly admire the work of established wildlife artists. An artist would paint something, for instance an eagle, and I would look at it and say, "there is no need for anyone to  ever paint another eagle because this one is perfect, and who could add to that?" Six months, or a year later I would see another eagle painting by another artist, that put the first one to shame. How could that be if the first one was perfect?
Of course perfection is not a static condition, it's a fluid existence that always progresses. How do I measure perfection in my own art? Since I can't know how others percieve my artwork, I can only measure it against my own arbitrary standard. The way I judge my own paintings is by comparing the completed work against the mental picture that first inspired the painting. It does'nt matter whether the painting looks good, I dont even know if it looks good, unless it looks the way I invisioned it would look. Someone else seeing what I consider to be perfect, may not relate to it at all.

My paintings almost never look the way I wanted them to look. In fact, in me whole carreer, only three paintings have come close to the mark. One of those paintings was just completed today.

This is the first of my perfect paintings. Spectacled Eider, 8x10". Of course it is far from perfect by any standards other than the fact that it looks just like I intended it to look. If you have modest expectations, then it's easier to reach perfection. The actual painting, looked much better than this photo indicates.

This is my second perfect painting, Red-necked Grebe, 11x14" This is a more ambitious effort than the first. Miraculously, I painted the whole thing in one day. Everything went smoothly without a hitch. Why cant they all turn out like this one?

Here are two photos of the third perfect painting. The varnish is still drying on this painting. Feather Dusters, 18x24" It is a much more ambitious work than the grebe painting, and it took weeks to complete. I was interested in three things with this painting, light, atmosphere, and texture. These are the main themes of many of my paintings. I also wanted to make the eagles look down, and dirty. The mottled plummage of sub-adult Bald Eagles is more interesting to me than the more pristine, brown and white of the adults. That is why I portrayed two sub-adult birds of different ages, and one adult for comparison. They are lounging about on a rocky coastline like Bald Eagles often do here in Alaska.

Many people resent the eagles because they eat all kinds of garbage to survive the winter. Then in the summer, the elevated eagle population, eat many young loons, and Sandhill Cranes. Loon, and crane populations are on the decline, while eagles are more abundant than ever.