Sketching A Great Blue Heron: Bandon, Oregon

            Last time we were at Bandon we found a great blue heron resting in a shore pine snag at the edge of a little pond.  He spent a couple of hours at midday, when the tide was high, preening carefully.  At little scratching was in order too. When it was time to feed the heron flew a short way to the exposed rocks in the tidal zone of the Coquille River estuary. Hunting for small fish was good in shallows amongst the rocks. 

            Today a stiff wind blows.  A heron, probably the same one, is at the same pond.  He walks slowly out of the shadows of the trees and into the pond. 

This is the only sketch in this post that isn't a field sketch ….. sketched from one of our photos.

            The heron straightens his neck, carefully watching the water beneath. Hunting isn’t very good.  Dale photographs and I sketch for a good hour without seeing him catch anything.  His luck probably wouldn’t be any better on the estuary where the wind is whipping up a choppy riffle in addition to big waves rolling in.  Some days fishing looks so easy for these herons, but not today. 

Getting Back Into The Mood

I wondered why so many mushrooms were tipped over.  I pick one up and found the stem packed with little white worms.

Note:  this is one of my tea stained pages -- look at the right edge.

After days of staying close to home because of icy roads I think this is a good essay to post.  I meant to post it in several weeks ago, but then the weather was nice and I wasn’t finding much ‘at home’ time.  

But first a short note to say my little hummer, mentioned in my last post, is still doing just fine.  She actually meets me at the door when I bring her feeder out at first light.  I have only to pause and she buzzes away, sipping from the feeder while I’m still holding it.  She survived a couple of nights at twelve degrees and more recently it has been in the twenties.  Soon nights will be above freezing again.

Do I write or do I draw?  DRAT!  I’m just pondering this when I dump my tea on my closed sketchbook:  At least it wasn’t coffee.  The ‘used’ pages, the ones with my watercolor sketches, have a little wobble in the paper.  The tea runs off the cover and tracks back into the wobbles.  The stain mostly soaked the outer inch, but ran a good three inches on my most recent page.  DRAT and RATS!  I quickly blot as much as I can.  

When I knocked over my mug I was just pondering whether to sketch a fluffy cattail head in ink (I watercolored one yesterday), or write notes.  

Notes will put me back into the mood.  One of the joys of my journal is later it takes me back to time and place, not that I want to remember spilled tea.  I want to remember this late fall sunshine, one raven croaking up a storm, and tiny mayflies hanging in mid air.  

Dale and I are at Lake in the Woods for a second day in a row, savoring the last of summer.  By mid afternoon the sun leaves all but the western edge of the pond.  This warm edge is host to a long string of cattails.  Yesterday I found only one head fluffing out, but today I walked farther along the string and found a patch of several.  Just a whiff of breeze and fluffs drift up, up and away.  The woods behind are dark.  Sunlight catches the ethereal fluff.

Douglas firs shed needles just like the alder and maple do at this time of year.  Warm brown slivers drift down, every so often bouncing off me or my page.  Mostly it is very quiet.  Two chipmunks come over to inspect.  Their little paws make scratchy noises when they run up a nearby Douglas fir.  Two hooded mergansers and one pied-billed grebe are on the pond.  For a while I could hear a soft plop each time the mergansers dove, but they moved off.  

Autumn Meadowhawk

It is almost loud when an autumn meadowhawk (small dragonfly) lands on me.  His stiff wings are crinkly like over crisped cellophane. I’ve found three species of dragonflies and two of damsels still flying.  I half expected two, the darner and the autumn meadowhawk, but not the boreal bluet, California spreadwings and striped meadowhawk.  It is barely warm enough for them to fly, maybe 70 degrees in protected sun.  More like 50 degrees in the shade.  

Most of the cattail heads are unopened, a warm rich brown velour.  Once a few seeds break free there is no putting the genie back in the bottle.  Each seed is tiny and carries its own parachute.  I rub half a dozen between my fingers and can’t even feel them, but the cattail head has thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.  Once a portion of the cattail head opens, a tumble of loose fluff bursts out.  The air stirs and seeds are off on their journey.

When we were in the Klamath Basin last week I noticed the cattails along the eastern edge of Tulelake were all golden brown and in full fluff.  The stubble field down wind was drenched in bits of fluff.  With the sun coming directly towards me the field looked as if covered by heavy frost.  

.... Ah yes.  My spilled tea is no longer important.  I’m back in the mood. 

According to the internet one cattail head can contain 220,000 seeds!  Fluff has been used for Indian baby diapers, life jackets in World War II, mattress stuffing by Swedish immigrants, dressing for wounds, for fire starting, etc.  

Burrrr! It is Cold Here

Burr.  It’s cold in my yard.  Some winters we see just a dusting of snow and a few frosts.  Some winters, like now, we get a cold snap that brings birds to our feeders in droves.  It was 22 degrees this morning – mild by standards in much of the country, but not here where the grass is green all winter and we are hosts to a couple of hummingbirds.  We’ve had snow on the ground since yesterday and it should stay a few more days. 

Yesterday a couple of robins flew in to see if any of my hawthorn berries were left.  He grabbed one and tossed it aside, then swallowed one, and tossed the third aside. There are only about a dozen berries left, but he didn’t bother checking them all.  Maybe he didn’t like swallowing frozen hardballs.

When it gets this cold we make a point of getting up at first light and rehanging the humming bird feeder.  Two hours later it was starting to freeze and I switched it for one I was warming in the living room.  In the early morning the hummer is so eager he sips before I get the feeder properly hung. 

This morning one hummer was waiting for me.  She sits fluffed like an exaggerated cotton-ball.