local ecosystem

Birdwatching!

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A still from the video - I’m the birdwatcher in the striped shirt!

A still from the video - I’m the birdwatcher in the striped shirt!

I love spending time outdoors, and I enjoy opportunities to do so while learning, exercising, and having new experiences. On the first day of spring this year - March 20th - I joined some friends in a birding hike at the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center in Stone State Park. To our surprise, part of the way through a cameraman appeared to document the event for the local news!

In this ABC television affiliate KCAU 9 video clip, you’ll hear about what we were up to but also get a glimpse of me on the trail - I’m the birdwatcher in the striped shirt, black face mask, maroon hat, and grey backpack. On this hike, I learned how to focus binoculars and became a little more familiar with some of the more common birds in the region: the white-breasted nuthatch, the red-bellied woodpecker, and the downy and hairy woodpeckers (they look very similar but have different beak lengths). We also saw a couple of bald eagles and turkeys, though I had already been able to identify those!

New Artwork: Emerging

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An overhead shot of a Humphrey in the garden.

An overhead shot of a Humphrey in the garden.

Since I don’t get to do an artist residency this summer due to the pandemic, I’m planning on producing from home! Sioux City is rabbit central - the Eastern cottontail, to be specific. Sometimes on neighborhood walks here I see just as many rabbits as I do squirrels. In my former town of Leavenworth, seeing a rabbit was notable and relatively rare. Earlier this spring, I noticed a juvenile rabbit made a home partially in my backyard (he also hops through the fence to my neighbors’ garden as well).

I named him Humphrey and began to try to acclimate him to my presence, so that I could take some nice reference photos for paintings. I talked about him to family and friends, and at one point joked with my parents that I supposed there might be several rabbits all being called Humphrey… and wouldn’t you know it, the very next day I saw two simultaneously! Since I can’t really distinguish them individually, giving them more names seemed unhelpful, so they’re now the Humphreys, plural. It appears there’s a nest/burrow under my deck, and I have now seen three Humphreys at the same time so there are at least that many but probably more. There do appear to be two different sizes of Humphrey, both juvenile but one small and one even tinier. My neighbor says she’s seen the parents, but I don’t know if I have; I’ve not seen an adult rabbit in my backyard at all this spring but I have seen one in my front yard once. And again, rabbits are ubiquitous here.

I plan to do several rabbit paintings, but here’s the first! It’s tentatively titled Emerging, though the title Under the Deck is also in consideration. It’s a 16x12x1.5” acrylic on basswood panel.