C.F. Tunnicliffe

I couldn't go into the Field Museum last week, and have the sinking feeling I won't be making it in this week. I've a big illustration deadline coming up, and it's going to be a long week. I have plenty to post about, though, from my last volunteer shift of two weeks ago.

Assistant Bird Collections Manager, and master taxidermist, Tom Gnoske, showed up in the late afternoon. After helping me out with a hybrid Northern Flicker I was working on (and will be posting about later) he showed Andria and I a copy of a book by British wildlife artist C.F. Tunnicliffe. I was shamefully ignorant of Tunnicliffe's work. The book he brought in was all watercolor and gouache studies of British birds, and the renderings were masterful and astounding. After doing a little internet research I found the Tunnicliffe Society. Tunnicliffe died in 1979, and in addition to paintings, was also a printmaker; a man after my own heart. His etchings and wood engravings are tremendously skilled. I've posted a wood engraving of a Barn Owl up above. Even his lichens are amazing! Ah, something to strive for.

Lichen

Ever since I saw a photo of a hummingbird's nest, I have been enchanted by the tiny, mysterious beauty of lichen. The nest was covered in at least a couple different species of lichen, the majority of which was a type of shield lichen (see link below). I rode my bike over to my favorite book store,Bookman's Alley, and haunted the natural history section hoping to find a used lichen field guide. No such luck, so I broke down and bought a new copy of "Lichens of the North Woods" by Joe Walewski, and its been difficult to keep my nose out of it. Lichens are actually 2 (sometimes 3) different organisms living cooperatively: algae and/or cyanobacteria, and fungus. While algae can exist on its own, the specific species of fungi that have developed the ability to "lichenize" cannot. It's gets more complex, but that is a very, very basic explanation of a lichen. Lichens can also act as bio-indicators of air quality, as they are collectors of airborne substances. Good air quality may be signified by the lichen diversity in a given area. While walking the dog a couple of days ago, I picked up a small fallen branch and identified Powdery Goldspeck, and Mealy Rosette Lichen (not 100% sure about that). Wee! The painting above is of Cladonia fimbriata or Trumpet Lichen. For more information, and photos of lichen mentioned in this post:

Lichens of North America

Mourning Dove - Zenaida macroura

A friend of mine was taking down a hanging planter basket in his yard when something fluttered out of it suddenly, giving him quite a start. He peered down into the basket and saw a scraggly tumble of twigs with two little eggs in it. He looked up, and a ways off in the distance saw the previous occupant, a Mourning Dove. He immediately hung the basket back up, went inside the house, and called his birdie 911 - me. Paul is a robust 6' 2" -ish, he wields large power tools on a daily basis, has been known to shove malted milk shakes into the faces of those who dare insult his friends, and yet, I could hear the guilt bubbling up and threatening to crack his voice on the other end of the line. What if the dove doesn't come back?!? What do I do? What if the eggs don't hatch?!? How would I know?!? I told him to wait, and chances are, when the dove figured out all was well again, it would return. And indeed it did. Now that the panic has subsided, Paul tells me he is "creeped out" at how the bird sits so intent and motionless, even as the basket sways in the wind. Some would call that its Zen-like focus on hatching those eggs. He claims the dove stares him down out the corner of its eye. Paul's a little paranoid. Paul is reading this. Paul did some online homework on Mourning Doves and learned that it takes roughly 15 days for the eggs to hatch, and 15 more for the squabs to fledge. Doves like other species in the family Columbidae drink water by immersing their bill entirely and sucking in through the nostrils. They feed their young a rich substance called crop milk, and both male and female share in nesting duties.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher - Tyrannus forficatus

And...another commissioned painting. I love seeing these when I get far south enough.

Hyalophora cecropia

This is another commissioned piece of a giant silk moth, Hyalophora cecropia. It was interesting reading up on the moth family Satuniidae, of which one my favorite moths belongs, Actias luna. One characteristic of the Saturniids is that the adult moths do not have mouths, and so do not eat. They live only to breed, and rarely beyond a week. Painting the intricate patterning in the wings of this beauty was more difficult than I anticipated, but was a welcome little challenge.

Big Brave Bear

This is a commissioned piece I just finished of a big ol' grizzly.

Giant Orange Rooster - Gallus orangina giganticus

I know I have been bragging about some of the little migratory visitors to my back yard recently, but this one takes the cake.I couldn't believe it when this very rare, unusual species showed up on my door step demanding to be fed (they are known to be very bold) this weekend. This particular species hasn't been spotted in the Chicago region since....well...hmmm, never? I put in a rare bird alert to the local Audubon chapter, and they hung up on me (what do they know!). He seems to deem my studio space as ideal habitat, and so for the time being (as long as we can meet the demands of his enormous appetite for Orangina), he has become the resident mascot of Tiny Aviary.

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Dendroica coronata

Well, I thought it only fair that if I did a painting of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, that I should do one of the other species that has been hanging about in the large hackberry tree in my back yard. When I initially spotted these, they were moving so fast that I had a difficult time getting some good field marks. I quickly noted the dark streaking, and the yellow on the breast sides, and the rump. I was told that these are very common warblers, but hey, it's the first time for me! And I didn't have to burn a bunch of fossil fuel to go scramble around somewhere else trying to catch a glimpse of it. Backyard birding is good for my carbon footprint. There are two variations of Dendroica coronata: Audubon's and Myrtle. The Audubon has less white than the Myrtle. This is a painting of a male Myrtle, which is what I had in my yard. Have a lovely weekend, and I hope that it's spent outside.

Why You Yellow-bellied Sapsucker!

Yesterday was an atypical day for my museum activities. Dave Willard had taken out several frozen bags of Yellow-bellied Sapsucker skins. These were birds that he had removed all of the viscera from, but never had the chance to stuff and mount. They had been sitting in the freezer for almost a year. There just isn't enough help and hours in the day, and so this is not unusual for things to sit around for a year or two before someone can get to it. I thawed out the sapsuckers in water, dried the feathers without drying out the skin too much, and then stuffed them. For skins that had been in the freezer for so long, they came out quite nice, and there was something satisfying about seeing a couple of rows of mounted specimens of a single species. You could really notice the subtle and not so subtle variations in plumage. I wish I had remembered to bring my camera. Many of them were young birds that were in the process of molting. I was there for 8 hours and managed to get through 12 of them (there are 22 total), and so will probably finish up the remaining skins next week. I was tempted to finish the last 3 of the 15 Dave had taken out that day, but when 4:30 rolled around, I thought of the northbound rush hour traffic, the 70+ degree weather outside, and called it quits.

I've done a painting of sapsuckers before on this blog, but wasn't really happy with it, and so here is a new one. Sapsuckers don't breed in this area, and are just passing through thank you very much. I've seen multitudes of them in Field collections, but have yet to see one in the field. This painting is of a female, as she lacks the red throat patch that the males have in addition to the red on the crown.

Spring

Today was crystal clear, and the air while warmed a bit by the sun, still had a cool nip to it. It's my favorite kind of early Spring climate. Migrating birds are coming through in waves. Hermit Thrushes appeared a couple of days ago, some maybe coming from as far south as Mexico and Guatemala. I see them foraging the underbrush lining the canal in the arboretum, gathering more fuel before they travel on to the northern hardwood forests. Yesterday, while standing in my back yard, I stared up into the upper canopy of the hackberry tree to see a group of tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and a pair of Yellow-rumped Warblers flitting about. Then my eyes drop down the trunk to see a Brown Creeper winding its way up. I jogged to the video store and paused at a scrappy corner patch of someone's backyard and saw Golden-crowned Kinglets picking through leaf litter, and then over to the canal to see a Belted Kingfisher. The neighborhood is alive with the calls of woodpeckers: Northern Flicker, Hairy, Downy, and Red-bellied. I loved the silence of Winter, but now it's time again to train ears and eyes to all the twittering life.

Last Wednesday at the museum, I worked on some Broad-winged Hawks from the Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources. The two I skinned were juveniles. It's been a while since I had worked on anything of that size, and was sorely out of practice. The feathers and skin on one of the legs of a Broad-winged I had worked on was twisted a bit out of place. Tom Gnoske spied it immediately walking through the prep lab. I felt the air suck out of the room a bit as I inwardly cringed. I and hawk were gently corrected. Tom is the Assistant Collections Manager in the Bird Division, and by far, the best skinner. His study skins are flawless. Flaaawless. He not only works on birds. Sometimes I have wandered into the lab to find an enormous wolf collected from the MDNR on the prep table, and told it's for Tom (ancient proverb: do not mess with the man that messes with wolves). He wiggled the hawk leg back into place, while giving me pointed tips and refreshers. I looked on as he deftly tugged at feathers and tissue until the bird relaxed back into position without a single feather out of place; not a one.