While I'm Shooting...

 Garrett the red-headed woodpecker is my muse. He lures me away from the drawing table and encourages me to enter bird time. I have to wait for him to show up at the Zick Dough log. And while I wait, all kinds of other beautiful things happen. This may be my favorite male cardinal shot yet. What if cardinals were as rare as red-headed woodpeckers? I'd be chasing this glorious bird all day. If I'm even tempted to take cardinals for granted, I have only to remember the Welsh birder who stayed a week with us who'd splutter "BRILLIANT! God! Look at THAT!!" every time a cardinal showed up in the yard.

I love this shot, too, of a female cardinal who is giving me the hairy eye for sitting just inside an open patio door. She knows the rules, and I'm breaking them. The door is supposed to be closed at all times.

She's all, "Really, Zick? You're shooting me through the open door? Where I can hear your shutter? And you're thinking that's just gonna be fine with me? Well, it's not. It's not fine. Good thing you make nice food, Missy."

Underlighting is a wonderful thing, especially if you're the color of a ripe bell pepper.

I was stunned to see one of my good old friends, Blondie the leucistic cardinal. She's been in our yard for at least three years, but she's always been on the north side of the house.  I'd never seen her in the backyard, and I'd never seen her sample Zick Dough before this beautiful sunny morning. See the white feathers in her crest? It seems she gets a few more every year. What a lovely thing she is. And a good mother. She had a couple of broods last summer. Not a good shot; she was suspicious and I was overexcited to see her,  and she vanished when she heard the shutter. But she'll be back. Zick Dough is like that.

I'm abashed and puzzled to say that only one eastern bluebird is eating Zick Dough with us this winter. I don't know why that is. Maybe there will be an influx when the weather really clamps down. (Nope, not even the weekend ice storm smoked more out). Maybe she's a loner. She has a male friend who occasionally comes in, but both of them are terribly shy--the most skittish bluebirds I've ever had. But she is very, very beautiful and graceful. Nothing dumpy about this gal! even though she eats lard and peanut butter all day. I love the harmonious color of the weeping willow in the background. Overcast is ever my favorite for bird portraiture.

She is so tight-feathered and lovely she looks like a Larry Barth carving to me.** Here, she shows the classic "hump back" of the bluebird. Roger Peterson said they look like they have poor posture. I think her posture is perfect.

**If you do not know who Larry Barth is, you owe it to yourself to click that link. If only to see him subdued by a six-year-old Liam in a Superman suit.

Another Melanerpes woodpecker, the red-bellied, M. carolinus.  (The red-headed is Melanerpes erythrocephalus). Most people never get close enough to see the ruby-red eye of a mature redbelly. I remember the first time I held one in  my hand...all I could look at was its beautiful fiery eye. I love my redbellies, too, and they know it. I still miss Ruby. Maybe there's another Ruby out there. I ask each redbelly who visits if they would like to try to fill her shoes. None yet seem up for the role of Zick Pet. A tame redbelly is a marvelous thing. They are suspicious birds by nature.

For now, I'll appreciate every minute with Garrett, for as long as he chooses to stay.  Bill had only a morning with our star bird before he had to leave for Las Vegas. Every time he called home I'd prattle on about Garrett. Garrett does this and Garrett did that and just today he...

Bill stopped me and said, "Do you realize you haven't said the words "red-headed woodpecker" once since I left?"

Hmm. Yeah. That's true. He's not a red-headed woodpecker any more. He's Garrett. Does that make me crazy? (The implication was there, hanging on the line between us).

Well.  Bill spent all day today (a Saturday with about 1/2" of ice coating everything) running from window to window trying to get shots of Garrett doing all the cool things a red-headed woodpecker does. And prattling on and on about the cute things Garrett was doing...

and I just smiled. Another one bites the dust.

Birds in Art

I'm posting from my friends Yo and Kate's home in Columbus, where I collapsed, as is my regular wont, upon returning to CMH airport at 10 pm. They always have a nice bed and dinner leftovers, which I can tell you are much, much better than my dinner leftovers, waiting for me. I wanted to show you some things from the Birds in Art show at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, WI, where I've spent the last four days.

It's so exciting and inspiring to see the works of 112 artists from around the world, all of them dealing with birds in some way. It's even better to hang out with those artists, and discover all our common ground, from health insurance and cash flow issues to the quirks of our creative process. I took only a few photos (for me), being much more interested in living it. Apologies for bad color and flubby retouching. It's hard to get a good photo in dim gallery lighting.

I had the pleasure of seeing paintings from Catherine McClung
and Suellen Ross
watercolorists who do what I do but do it a whole lot better. Whew. What gorgeous, lush work! and what wonderful people they are. I look at these paintings and marvel. I know what went into them all too well. Glorious!

John Busby, from Scotland, is this year's Master Artist, an honor overdue. Here are his diving boobies.
There's no one who can see and sketch birds in flight like John Busby. His paintings are so lively, so full of action, and every bird spot on.

I love his "society scenes" like this one.
John draws what he sees, and his compositions are such fun to wander within.

I spent a great deal of time talking with sculptor/woodcarver extraordinaire, Larry Barth. These completely pitiful photos of his mountain bluebird piece do nothing to enhance its beauty, but they will give you a dim idea of his skill and vision.
The razor-thin edge of a bluebird wing.
This is wood, believe it or not. And despite the poor color here, it is incandescent blue.
I wish I could convey all Larry and I talked about, the whys and hows of carving exquisite birds, the convoluted path that leads to a piece like this. It's really the stuff of a book. Talking with Larry Barth is like entering a library, pulling one volume after another off the shelf. I feel blessed to know these folks, to incorporate their artistic viewpoints into mine.