HOUSE FINCH!!! And FIRST BWD ISSUE

Male, female at far bottom left

Just a few minutes ago, I was finishing dressing myself when suddenly a whispered cry blurted from my mom,

"CRISTINAAA! THERE'S A NEW BIRD AT THE FEEDER!"

I ran to the kitchen with the window that had a view to the feeder, snatched my camera and very carefully peeked out. There, on the thistle sock feeder a strange brownish bird with a red cap clung, competing with the greedy House Sparrows for a place where to feed. For some reason the first name that popped into my mind was "bushtit", even though they don't look AT ALL like the bird that I had in front of my eyes.

I crept in closer, hiding behind the wall. Then I was able to see what it was. A male House Finch, with a female (perhaps his mate, I'll never know). It was the second time I saw this bird. Ever. Ironically some people have HOARDS of house finches at their feeders, gobbling up the entire content of a birdfeeder in just a few hours. And here I have this lonely pair, whom I am wishing will come every day from now on.

Female

I took as many pictures as I could before they went away, annoyed by the greedy sparrows that just won't give them some space where they can eat in peace. Sigh...

Yet still I was terribly happy to have new customers at the birdfeeders. I hope they come back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day...

Male

Second news is that, after a week without checking the mail (caused by mysteriously disappearing mail keys), my mother found between the mail nothing but my FIRST BIRDWATCHER'S DIGEST MAGAZINE ISSUE! I had asked for it for christmas, and here it is! WOOHOO!

Ridiculous Thirst For Bird Art

These past couple of days I have been having a terrible urge to paint birds.

 I enjoy sketching them, that's for sure, but I want to bring those gray drawings to life. I think my mom has had a part in this not-so-strange art instinct. 

"Kity?" (she affectionately calls me that)

"Yep?"

"I really need you to do me a big favor"

"Um, what is it?"

"I need you to draw me something, and then paint it. I want to fill our home with them, Kity. I love them."

"Well, um, sure why not!  But I need, you know, tools to do so."

I do have some artist tools, but they are school temperas and oils. The temperas, I don't think I have to talk much about them. They are very basic, that's why you use them in school. My wonderful oils--I don't have many of them. I'm out of zinc white and other important colors,  many of the caps won't come off, and oils don't fit that much with what I really want to do. 

So I went about searching on the Net for some medium I would find good. Now, I'm battling between two choices--acrylics and watercolors.

Acrylics are very versatile and dry quickly. You can paint really smooth-looking and detailed art, such as this:

Aquatic Warbler (C) Lukasz Bednarz, BirdingArt.com

I am completely in love with this picture, but of course don't expect to paint like that without some truly formal-formal art education, but a girl can dream can she?

 

Plus, you can use acrylics as watercolors or as oils. Told you how versatile they are!

Now with Watercolors. Watercolors are not very expensive and are fairly easy to use, but you need Practice. 

My objective would be to get to this amount of detail: 

Lark In The Morning-Eastern Meadowlark by Julie Zickefoose

But that needs a lot of practice, yet I won't give up. When it comes to art, I can't stop until I have what I wanted to have. I need to be a perfectionist in order to accomplish my goal, which will then lead to extreme satisfaction and peace of mind. Ahhh.

Maybe I'll see if I can get my parents to buy me some art supplies. 

PS: Sketches of mine coming soon!

Spring Preps

Singing male Canada Warbler from Wiki Commons

Soo, I'm currently making my own spring preparations. If I don't, I'd go cuckoo and end up in a birding emergency room  "T-The songs. S-s-so m-m-many sss-s-songs I-I can-n-ot  I-IDENTIFF-FY!!!". Or, maybe I'll scamper crazily across the woodland, trying to catch a glimpse of the mystery singer that hides in the foliage, eventually getting kidnapped or ending up with a serious case of "warbler's neck"*.

To avoid such events, which are real possibilities for birders, I am making my own preparations for the Springtime. Yep--learning birdsongs.

I have been going steadily, step by step. One warm day, the loud, whistled and varied song of the cardinal, another the fee-bee-fee-bay of the Carolina chickadee. The peter-peter-peter and here-here-here! of the Tufted titmouse. I was trying to learn them all, steadily, but I knew that I would have to get a quicker method to learn many bird songs at once. Then came the trip to the library...

After drooling for a long time on nature books 'til my brains hurt, the library began to close. We hurried to check out whatever books we wanted, and as I hurried to the check-out something caught my eye. Why, it was Peterson's Eastern and Central North America Birding By Ear. Just what I needed!

I quickly snatched it from its shelf and was able to check out my books and the CD just in time, leaving the library with that feeling you get when you notice that today they DID have that delicious blueberry cheesecake   you always dream about in the lunch counter. Yum.

A couple of days later I began my self-tutoring.  I reviewed each of the 86 species shown on CD, and am still doing so. This way, I will be able to enjoy the beautiful songs a whole lot more when knowing what is making the sound.

The only drawback is that the CD shows only common Eastern birds, and you can't expect that every single bird you encounter will  be one regarded as "common". Thus I will be making my very own bird song recompilation. I'll lump every single Eastern bird in a Word document with a link to its song and call (whom I will get from the Macaulay Library) and try to learn as many as I can (specializing on birds I'm most likely to see around where I live).

Well, that's pretty much it. Wish me luck!

IT'S ON ITS WAY!/SE ACERCA!

This is how our balcony looked in the summer. I can't believe that it looked
like this. Just look at all this...this...this GREENESS!!!

I have never in my life missed seeing trees with exuberant foliage so ridiculously. Being a Tica I am used to seeing trees with exuberant foliage, but here in North America winter has been cruel on me.

It was certainly beautiful to watch the trees change color in the fall, and begin losing their leaves. The days got shorter, the trees went naked and I began to see my own breath every time I breathed. I had never seen or heard a single Northern flicker since, and the feeders began getting more and more crowded with birds. Winter was here, and soon snow would begin to fall.

But now I simply can't believe how much I miss seeing trees overwhelmed with green leaves. I drool on pictures of green forests filled with warblers, orioles, tanagers, vireos and many other birds. I just can't take it anymore. Tropical fish need coral reefs. Period.

But now, I feel like there is SOME hope that spring is on its way. About 3 weeks ago we had an entire 60º F week, with lots o' sunshine. The birds went NUTS! Titmice, chickadees, cardinals and mourning doves began to sing. Deer stepped out of their hiding places in the woods and let themselves be seen. I actually saw a pair of mourning doves mating. Uh huh!

Every single one of those glorious days I came back from school, grabbed my birding gear and went outside. Jesus, everything just woke up! Insects crawled under my feet, and I marveled when one of those days I had a very close encounter with a doe that was springing about the woods.

The doe, who approached me unafraid. She passed only one or two meters
away from me.

Yet, as all good things do, it only lasted for about 6 days, and on Saturday the party was ovah'. 40-30º degrees outside, and everything just crawled back to sleep (except the songbirds, they are still singing, fortunately!). Darn it.

But I knew there was still hope, that in one or two months it would be blooming and singing all over again. The grass has gotten greener, trees are filled with moss and one morning I found a House Finch perched on an oak tree, singing its lungs out. Carolina wrens have gotten into it, and Robins (American ones) have reappeared on the lawns.

Let's hope, let's hope Spring comes soon... Ticos like me die out in all this deadness/grayness/coldness/winterness.