BBC Wildife Artist of the Year 2012 - Finalist

Last year in early May our exciting visit to 'The Biggest Week in American Birding' at and around Magee Marsh in Ohio was made even more exciting when I received an email saying that I was a finalist in the 'International Artists' category for BBC's Wildlife Magazine Wildlife Artist of the Year. There was a bounce in my step as I lugged all my birding and sketching gear around Magee Marsh!
I had noticed that many people had announced their finalist status on their web sites. But I didn't want to jinx a good thing, nor come afoul of an etiquette I might not be familiar with, so I didn't announce my finalist status online until the final judging date was long passed and I hadn't heard from BBC. At that point I was happy to advertise that I'd been named a finalist.
This morning I got another surprise email - I'm a finalist again in the International Artist category! If you do a quick web search you'll see that a number of others have been as well, somewhere over 100, and many have announced it. So I'm less hesitant this year to say that I'm again a finalist, this time for one of my favorite linocuts, 'Ten Terns', seen above. I think it represents me fairly well as an artist.
Final judging will be this week. I'm hoping for the best. Here is a link to the 2011 winners, complete with their work. By the way this has been a good week for 'Ten Terns'. It's also featured in Wildlife Art Journal's Gallery of the Commons. At the moment this article is available to everyone but it may change back to being available only to subscribers at some time.

Sorting Dowitchers

I suppose in any field you hear a truism and assume it is true until someone tells you otherwise. I've always heard and read that Long-billed and Short-billed Dowitchers could really only be told apart by call. But shorebirds are not my area of expertise. Perhaps if I'd seen more of them I'd know this isn't true.

In any case the shorebird workshop mentioned in the last post spent a fair amount of time showing how to differentiate them. But even after all that when I saw the mystery dowitcher that I spent an hour sketching and photographing I thought it was a specific race of a Short-billed Dowitcher.

As I looked through my photos though I realized that one showed a longer, thinner bill than is often found on a Short-billed. When I looked at 'The Shorebird Guide' I found this regarding molting adult Long-billeds:

Head molt starts earlier than body molt so many late-summer birds have agray-headed, salmon-bellied look.

The Shorebird Guide, by Michael O'Brien, Richard Crossley and Kevin Karlson

The gray head with salmon wash on neck and going into belly was one of the most striking parts of this bird. That, the long bill, the rich colors of feathers, and the 'swallowed-a-grapefruit', hunched look all make me think this was a Long-billed. And I'm sure if I remembered everything from the class I could cite a couple of other reasons.

In the long run it doesn't make much difference. But for me part of the enjoyment of birding is trying to make difficult IDs like this.

One side note: hardly had I started this than our whole house shook. The cats appeared in the hallway with wide-eyed looks. Yes it felt just like one of those earthquakes I used to experience in California. And it was: a 5.8 one centered in Virginia and felt all the way to New York.

I think I wrote a few months ago about how the study of geology humbles you. And to actually feel geology is probably doubly humbling. It's so easy to think that our lives and what goes on in them, including the most idiotic headlines in sensationalist news, are what's important. Then the ground wiggles under you and you have second thoughts.