A Snow Bunting and a Squirrel Problem

Here is the painting I have been working on the past few days. I think it's finished now. This sweet bird visited our backyard a few years ago. I didn't even know what kind of bird it was at the time. It looked to me like a cross between a large sparrow and a bunny. So fluffy! I looked it up and found that it was a snow bunting. I'm glad it stayed long enough for me to take a few photos of him.

I did a previous painting of him but I like this one much more. I hope to have prints and cards available with this image in my shop in the next week or so.

I love birds and have always fed them in our backyard. Having a garden that welcomes wildlife is important to me. I also wanted Emma and Chloé to learn about nature through our garden. From when they were toddlers, I kept bird, caterpillar and butterfly guides near our back door so we could identify our garden visitors. Among the birds that have visited our yard are sparrows (many, many sparrows), chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, juncos, robins, swallows, mourning doves, cedar waxwings, hummingbirds, house finches, goldfinches and woodpeckers. We've had rare visits by a kingfisher, a hawk and a ruffed grouse. Plus the sweet snow bunting.

We have been in our current house for over 16 years. It was a new neighbourhood when we moved in so there were very few trees initially, which also meant that there weren't any squirrels. But there are now! The trees have matured. Now my bird seed isn't just attracting my feathered friends, it is attracting squirrels as well...which would be fine except for Meeko. Meeko is calm and accepting when birds are at our feeders. But squirrels? Oh my. He gets riled up, wants to chase them and he barks...a lot. I try to keep him quiet for the sake of our neighbours and our own sanity but it's hard to do. Last week, Chloé was studying for exams and Meeko was barking incessantly at the squirrels. She suggested that maybe I need to stop feeding the birds or to find another place for the feeder that is not visible from the house. That is such a hard thought for me although she may be right. I'm trying to think of alternate solutions. I thought of placing food on the ground somewhere to divert the squirrels' attention. I've even thought of placing paper at Meeko's eye level on the back door so he can't see them from inside. If you have a brilliant idea, let me know!

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On another topic, I have a few of my prints on sale currently! You can have a look at them here. I've been working on my shop a lot these past few weeks. I now have my art organized by category and theme. I hope it makes browsing more efficient and interesting. 

A Wee Sparrow

There was excitement in the backyard yesterday. I looked out and saw a tiny baby sparrow hopping around on our back patio. One of its parents was beside it. I ran for my camera and kept my distance while taking some photos but my presence was enough to scare it. It went scurrying into our long, not-yet-cut grass. At that point, its parent was no where to be seen. I felt so bad. I was worried that Meeko might find it, so we kept him in the house. Then I worried that someone would step on the poor thing because it wasn't obvious at all where it was. I ended up putting a metal fence around the area where it was hiding as a reminder to us of where it was. Then I went to garden on the other side of the yard to give the little sparrow time and space.

Emma was inside the house and monitored it from there. She googled baby sparrows as we weren't sure if it had fallen out of one of our birdhouses or if it was really time to fly. She found that if it had feathers (which it did) that leaving its house was most likely intentional and it would soon be able to fly. Sure enough, a little later our little fellow was gone.

The downward crook of its beak makes it look a bit sad or at least very serious. I suppose in a sparrow's life, the first day of flying is very serious and I'm sorry that I added to this little one's stress.

I am happy however to have photos of him and think I will try to do a painting of him. Right now though, I have a few more days of gardening ahead of me.

My Backyard Friends

Meeko's not my only companion in the backyard while I garden. I am frequently visited by some very beautiful friends! Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal are above and below. What a handsome fellow the male cardinal is. The female is very lovely too in a more understated way. They are such sweet, polite birds. They always arrive together and gently chirp (pip, pip, pip) when they find that the seed tray is empty as if to say "We had hoped to have a little snack, but don't worry we'll drop by again." They are nothing like the beautiful yet very bossy blue jay who will screech from the top of the tree: "Hey lady, I thought I told you that I like the seeds put out before I arrive!"

Other birds who tend to visit as a couple are my lovely mourning doves. They are not hugely brilliant or maybe they just don't see well. It's not too hard to surprise them. But they are so pretty and I love their goofy charm.

Finally, this is a sweet little song sparrow. I love its striped and speckled markings. I often hear him before I see him. He is a very gifted singer and he serenades me (I like to think it's me) on a regular basis from a neighbouring tree.

I'm lichen it

It's bad when you carry a pun around in your head for over a week. And you'd think that would be time enough to change your mind about using it. But no. I have called this post 'I'm lichen it'.

These are photos I have taken during the past couple of weeks on my walks with Meeko. It's amazing the treasures you can find, even in a relatively barren winter forest.

I like how interactions on the internet can subtly change us or alter our perspective. I'm grateful for the international band of creative people I follow whether on their blogs, Facebook, Etsy or Twitter. Lisa Solomon is a California-based visual artist and professor who seems to have a million creative projects on the go. I know her mostly on Twitter which seems kind of weird to say. :) One of her projects that struck me with its simplicity and beauty is her 'look up and down' series of daily photos she posts on her Tumblr account. If you start thinking and looking that way, for instance while walking your dog or doing one of the other routines in your day, you start to see things that you might have missed.

And I can't look at lichen or fungi without thinking of Margie, which I mean as an absolute compliment and I think she will understand that. (Some don't feel that way. Emma asked me why I take photos of those 'things'.)

So here are some of my 'ups and downs' from recent forest walks.

A gorgeous wasp nest that was so high up in the trees, I had never noticed it. It looks like some sort of exotic hat.

Meeko accidentally disturbed a flock of mourning doves so they flew up into the trees giving me a photo opportunity. They spend most of their time on the ground. They are such beautiful birds yet are so goofy in terms of their behaviour. I love them.

A very ordinary cement block that seemed very beautiful with its cracks, texture and snow cover.

And here's who I see most often when I look down:

We had more snow overnight. Heavy, thick snow. Meeko doesn't tire of it. I am less enchanted by it these days. Spring on my mind. In between winter walks with my faithful companion, I've been working on paintings and will do a more art-related post soon.

Don't forget to look 'up and down' this week!

A Birdie Sort of Giveaway (Closed)

It's a dark and gloomy day here. For some reason, it feels like a giveaway day. :) Leave a comment here and I will choose one name on Tuesday morning to win one of my new Blue Feather prints. There are more photos and details about the print here.

And because it is so very dark and gloomy, I'm going to add one of my new Chickadee note cards that are printed on real watercolour paper.

So the winner will receive one print and one note card (with envelope). Anyone can enter. Good luck!

Thanks everyone for the lovely comments. I appreciate your kind words so much. I will continue to accept comments up until 9:00 a.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, October 2nd. I'll announce the winner sometime during the morning.

Feathered Friends

We have a small artificial lake in the park across from our house. We watched from our front window as the City converted a farmer's field into a lake, soccer field and playground about nine years ago now. It's been particularly interesting to watch the lake come alive and become host to many creatures--birds, fish, turtles, frogs. Of the bird residents, the Canada geese can definitely be a little annoying.  There are a lot of them, they are noisy and they can make the shoreline quite unpleasant to walk on (if you know what I mean). But there are goslings currently and they are so cute! There are two families that seem to spend all of their time together.

There is also a mallard family.  Here is the mom with her little ducklings. She didn't make it easy for the photographer. Can you see them just behind her along the rocks? She spent quite a bit of time there with them. It must have been a good lunch spot.  Earlier the same day, the ducklings swam past the goslings, but do you think I had my camera with me then? Of course not.

As I was taking photos of the geese, I guess I disturbed the heron and it took off all of a sudden. Even the goose looks a little startled.  I had the long-range lens on the camera and didn't have a lot of time to react so the photos aren't quite crisp.  I love the heron. He's so majestic.

Meeko is really quite wonderful around the birds. He sees them and is interested but doesn't bark or try to chase them. So for his good behaviour, I thought he deserved a little photo session too.

Birdie Lover - Meeko

On Etsy, they have added a new artist profile section to each shop called 'About'. It's optional to use it but it's quite a nice way to include more information about your work.  I spent quite a lot of time working on mine. You can read it here if you are interested.  I'm sure I'll tweak it a bit in the days and weeks ahead but I'm pretty happy with it as a start.  Maybe you'll learn something about me you didn't know. :)

A Bundle of Joy and a Stork?

Two years ago, I held a beautiful bundle of joy in my arms. No, it's the not a third child whom I never speak of (the one who lives under the stairs). Two years ago today, we brought home Meeko. That's actually Emma in the photo, holding him as we drove home. It happened to be Mother's Day and that seemed like a perfectly fitting day to me.

When we brought Meeko home, he was smaller than the phone book.

Meeko was calm and cuddly for about three days, actually it may have been more like three hours, before becoming a highly energetic, rambunctious rascal. I lost some weight in the first few months he was with us and slept more soundly than I had in years. Meeko moved constantly and it almost always involved mischief, so I needed to move as fast as he did. He would nip our ankles as we walked across rooms. Soft-coated Wheaten terriers originated in Ireland where they were used primarily as farm dogs. They would tend sheep. We figured it was his sheep-herding instincts coming to the fore. We couldn't wear anything that dangled (skirts, scarves) or he would try to snatch it. He tried to snack on just about every plant in my back garden. He chewed on the edges of a couple of pieces of furniture and gnawed a hole in the middle of a wall (don't ask me how, I honestly don't know how he did it). We bought the special bitter lotion that is sold to deter dogs from chewing furniture and, wouldn't you know it, he liked the taste of it! He pulled my recipe books off the bottom shelves of the bookcase (we had to fence the bookcase off for a year). He chewed many, many sprinklers of my watering system in the back garden. I really don't have room to fully list all of his shenanigans.

Meeko thinks that the stories of all of his puppy mischief are quite funny.

With a lot of work on our part and a good deal of maturing on his, he has turned into the wonderful dog he is today. He is goofy. He is joyful. He is faithful and affectionate. And he is smart like you wouldn't believe. At the dog training courses we took, I was told to keep my words to him brief. But I can't. I talk to him in words, sentences and paragraphs and he's absorbed a good part of it. The number of words he understands is really quite remarkable. Emma has even taught him a number of commands in ASL (American Sign Language). He still has a few rough edges, but then I guess so do most of us. He has captured even the reluctant hearts in this household and a few more in our neighbourhood as well. I love him deeply.

Speaking of bundles of joy, I could have sworn I saw a stork out the front window this morning. There is a small man-made lake in the park across the street. I am used to seeing a great blue heron there, but this bird was white. Then I realized, there were two of them. I searched online and found out that they are great egrets. Just beautiful. Chloé and I both took photos.

The second one is on the other side of the grasses (a bit to the left). It almost looks like a mirror image.

I hope they visit again. (This photo is by Chloé)

Lines and Connections

Anyone who comes here regularly knows that I love birds, rocks and hearts, and that I really love detail. So maybe this painting was meant to be. First I created a composition. I assembled one of my favourite heart-shaped rocks, a lovely ball of twine and...oh oh...I don't have a real bird nest.  So instead, I made my composition using a not-so-natural-looking decorative bird nest (that dark brown thing in the upper right hand corner of the photo). Then I looked up photos of what a real song sparrow's nest and eggs look like. I chose a song sparrow because they are among our backyard birds. In fact, there's one fellow who often sits in the birch tree just behind our yard and sings his little heart out to me.

My painting was done referring to my composition photo, several reference photos of song sparrow nests and my actual rock and twine. Do you know how many little lines and tiny squiggles there are in a ball of twine or a bird's nest? Let's just say several days' worth.

In my painting, a piece of the bird's nest touches the rock. There are bits of twine woven into the nest and there is a lovely spiral piece of twine that winds its way through the painting. I wanted to convey a sense of connection.  I've titled the painting "This is where my heart lives".

Pictured below is the print that I did of my painting. That took me days as well! After several unsuccessful scans (angled this way and that way), I finally worked from a photo of my painting and have ended up with a print that I am proud of.  I hope you like it too.

Red, White and Black

Saturday morning: snow, a Northern cardinal and a Dark-eyed junco. Beautiful.

Some Photos and a Serenade

Yesterday, Meeko and I took a lovely walk in the woods along with my iPod Touch. These photos aren't too bad considering they were taken by the Touch and it's certainly convenient being able to carry it in my back pocket.  The light has been quite lovely the past couple of days creating lots of long blue shadows on the snow (what's left of it that is).

The past two weeks, I have been letting Meeko off his leash when we walk on the path.  He is very happy about the arrangement and has been very good about staying close to me and coming back when I call him. He knows that my pocket is full of treats when we go for our walks together.

I paid special attention to curled, dead leaves after seeing this wonderfully interesting blog post this past week.  A reminder that there is beauty in everything.

When we got to the end of the pathway, we were given the most wonderful serenade.  If you look very closely (I've put a little circle as it really isn't that easy to spot and the Touch is limited in what it captures), you will see the cardinal who was singing his little heart out to us.  And look at that gorgeous blue winter sky.

Backyard Friends

There were so many birds in the backyard this morning.  We almost had a full house.  I saw a cardinal, chickadees, a goldfinch, a house finch, sparrows and a junco all at once.  I don't often see them all together. The only regular visitors missing were the mourning doves and maybe a blue jay or two. Looking at our busy tree made me think of Diana Sudyka's beautiful watercolour called 'Winter Birds'.

Not all of the birds cooperated for photos but most did.

There's a spring feeling in the air today. I even saw a robin a couple of days ago. As much as I am looking forward to spring, I wouldn't mind the cold weather lasting a little bit longer. (Did I hear someone groan?) The girls want to skate on the rink in the park across the street. We have to buy both of them new skates. And I would like to keep walking on the little forest path with Meeko. It's such a special part of my day. Once everything thaws, the path becomes impassable and we'll have to stick to city sidewalks.

And yet I do look forward to my garden flowers.