A Birdy Blog Today

Photos of birds!  Drawings and paintings of birds!  Some other stuff, too, like the dachshunds, of course.  All the best blog posts have wiener dogs in them.

The first good bird was a Belted Kingfisher we got to admire during a walk by the marina.

The bird looked as if it wanted to swoop down to the water to snag a fish, and I waited ever so patiently with camera poised in case this happened, but the Hounds refused to stay in one place that long.  I had to give up on my vigil and walk the dogs.

Of course, no more than ten seconds after I made that decision, the kingfisher swooped down to the water to grab a fish.  Except that it didn't catch the fish, and zipped back up to its perch, looking faintly perplexed.

The second good bird sighting of the week happened out at Columbia Point, a natural area with a lot of sagebrush and some lovely views of the spot where the Columbia and Yakima rivers meet.

A flock of coots was hanging out there, and something startled them, sending them scurrying across the water in typical manic coot fashion:

That wasn't the good bird sighting, though.  Nope.  That happened a bit later on, when I spied a kestrel flitting from tree top to tree top.  When I got close enough to zoom in, I was startled to see that the bird was grasping its breakfast!  

It looked like a vole, as far as I could tell, and must have been a fresh kill, since the falcon hadn't started chowing down yet.  In fact, it kept flying from tree to tree trying to find a quiet place to eat, away from prying humans with cameras.

So that was an exciting morning!

We also had birds for our Zoom art practice sessions this past week.  One of them was a tad wacky:

I did a very fast (20 minute) sketch with ink and watercolor brush pens, just for a fun, slightly exaggerated picture:

Then I spent a bit more time, about an hour, painting this Northern Red Bishop (a bird I had not heard of -- seems to be mostly African) using watercolor:

A third practice piece had no birds in it whatsoever.  It's my favorite from the past week, as I really like the reflections in the water and the textures I got on the rocks.  This one took about an hour and ten minutes, and I used brown ink and watercolor:

That's all for now.  Have a lovely week out there, wherever you are, and may you see good birds!