Simple

Brown Creeper

Sometimes life just simplifies things for you.

A slow healing foot and a clunky cast means: no running errands, no snowshoeing, no major home or studio projects, no trips, no February studio sale, not even very many crow walks around the neighbourhood.

But what there is, waiting for me every day, is the garden. And in the garden, the birds. I’ve discovered that between those two things, there’s more than enough to keep me occupied.

Steller’s Jay

For one thing, I joined Project FeederWatch, run by Cornell University and Birds Canada, and started spending time each week counting the birds in the garden and sending the information to help track North American bird populations. Given that recent statistics have shown a terrible decline over the past few decades, it’s important to gather these numbers.

I’ve discovered already that there are two things that will clear a garden of birds in seconds. The first is a hawk in the neighbourhood; the second is a human being out there to count birds. They normally fly around me with not a care in the world, but as soon as I settle in with my FeederWatch App, it’s as if a pterodactyl has cast an ominous shadow. Still, I managed, over two days this week, to monitor 12 difference species in our small space.

Orange Crowned Warbler

While it seems at times that the wider world is going mad, we are lucky enough to have few square feet of our own in which to try and make a small difference. I’m researching how I can make our garden an even better refuge for birds than it is now. More native plants, a brush pile, more water sources …  John Marzluff, bird scientist and author of  Subirdia, recently appeared on the Joe Gardner podcast, chatting about bird population decline and ways in which gardeners can help.

Creatively, I’ve been working on a new series of portraits, all from bird photographs taken in our small garden. While I do like to travel and see birds, somehow it seems to me more miraculous when they make their way here, like feathered messengers.

Varied Thrush

So far, in the 2020 collection, I’m working on chickadees (black capped and chestnut backed), an orange crowed warbler, northern flicker, varied thrush, Steller’s jay, Anna’s hummingbird, spotted towhee, brown creeper and starling.

Chestnut Backed Chickadee

Black Capped Chickadee

Some of these images are works in process. My years old libraries of photographs of flowers, leaves, ancient walls, vintage fabric, lichen, cracked stone, forest landscapes and family letters are used like colours in a painter’s palette. Sometimes I think an image is done, but the next day something doesn’t look right and I start again.

Common Starling

Although I’m confined to home and garden, I feel as if I’m travelling as I go through decades of images looking for just the right scrap of texture or colour. It may be a suggestion of a lupin or a grass shadow. Ancient walls from a church in Wales appear in many of these new images. The barkcloth curtain on our back door which frames my daily view of the garden is usually in there somewhere.

Spotted Towhee

As I work, they layers of the images remind me of people I’ve know, letters I’ve written and received, places I’ve lived, books I’ve read and music I’ve listened to. All of these things come together in how I see the world, so it seems appropriate that they should be part of my work. The bird portraits are my explanation of what the natural world means to me, now — and all of those memories are part of it.

Northern Flicker

Once I’ve finished playing with these images, I will try making tiles with them. Somehow seeing them on stone brings them into focus for me.  Here is a nice little movie in which I talk about my tile making process.

When I’m happy with the images, they’ll be available as prints in my online shop and, eventually, some of them will become textiles like cushion covers and bags.

In the meantime, however, I’m enjoying wandering the virtual hallways of images and recollections, so I may keep creating some more new images for a while.

There’s a small nuthatch that I’m thinking of, and a perhaps a pygmie owl …

Male Anna’s Hummingbird

 

 

 

© junehunterimages, 2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to junehunterimages with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Hummingbird Interlude

There’s really nothing like an Anna’s hummingbird bathing in a rhododendron leaf for a mid-week pick me up.

There you go.

Now you can carry on with your week.

Maybe dream about bathing hummingbirds tonight.

 

 

http://www.junehunter.com

© junehunterimages, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to junehunterimages with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Novice Hummingbird

Some of us always read the manual. Others do not (except in the direst emergency.)

It would seem that our little Anna’s Hummingbird falls into the latter category.

From everything I’ve ready about these tiny little birds, they meet most of their liquid needs from sipping nectar — from feeders or flowers. I have a water mister attached to my birdbath which hummingbirds are supposed to enjoy for bathing in and drinking.  While robins, chickadees, bushtits, flickers and even crows, seem to adore the mister, I’ve yet to see a hummingbird use it.

Robin-in-a-mist

We just moved a stone lion fountain we’ve had for a while to the front of my studio and, since it’s been there, a very young Anna’s Hummingbird has been to “take the waters” there several times a day.

 

As far as I can gather, hummingbirds are not meant to drink like this. But, as I said, this one has not yet consulted the hummingbird instruction booklet …

Might as well just go for it …

She actually seems to have a bit of a  technique there — spreading her wings on the outside of the fountain to stop herself from diving right in.

She does do some more “normal” things, like sipping nectar from flowers …

… and from the good old plastic feeder …

Educational Sidebar . . .

Those hummingbird tongues are a miracle of ingenuity in themselves. Until very recently, it was believed that they acquired nectar using capillary action. Some scientists thought that the lightening speed at which they feed made capillary action seem too slow a method, so they set up feeding stations with elaborate slow motion recording equipment. In 2015 they discovered that Nature’s design is even more amazing, involving an intricate pumping action created by the elasticity of the hummingbird tongue. You can see one of the videos they made, and read more in this New York Times article, The Hummingbird Tongue: How It Works.

When our little hummingbird is  getting a bit tired from all that fountain exploration and cleverly engineered sipping, she settles into a quiet spot for a birdnap.

I find the following thirty second video of her taking a quiet moment oh-so delicately balanced on the end of a bit of old honeysuckle vine remarkably relaxing.  I keep it on my phone so I can watch it when I feel the world is going mad.

 

And, speaking of relaxation . . . in a week from now I’m heading to the UK for a month. As I’m a one woman operation, I’ll be closing the online shop from May 28 until July 1, so if you have something you’d like to order before I go, now is the moment …

While I’m gone, apart from spending much anticipated time with family and friends, I hope to see some Tower ravens, meet some of my favourite UK artists, go on some hikes and see lots of British birds. I’ll just have a little point and shoot camera with me, but I’ll try to keep you updated on the highlights as I go.  I’ll certainly be posting on Instagram and Facebook and may even manage a blog post or two.

Till then, I leave you with the thought that, although manuals are often handy, sometimes it’s fun to figure things out as you go along.

P.S. Some of my most popular posted images, including the top image of the hummingbird at the fountain are available in a new section in my shop: By Special Request.