A Day Without Warblers

Bay-breasted Warbler. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Black and White Warbler. Watercolor by Ken Januski.



Black-throated Green Warbler. Watercolor by Ken Januski.

Black-throated Green Warbler. Watercolor by Ken Januski

Baltimore Oriole et al. Field Sketch by Ken Januski

After all the warblers of Magee Marsh, seen with very little obfuscating foliage, it's been quite a change to return to my local Philadelphia haunts and find that the few warblers that are here are often extremely high and/or hidden by extensive foliage. Each day out reminds me of the saying about a day without wine being like a day without sunshine. Or perhaps a day without jazz is like a day without sunshine as a public radio station in Kentucky used to say. I feel like I'm going through warbler withdrawal.

But there have been some warblers and also other first of season or first of year birds for Philadelphia. It's been a treat to see familiar thrushes, flycatchers and orioles again. Many of them will remain here and nest. The field sketch immediately above shows some of the local birds, a not quite local Chestnut-sided Warbler seen from more or less straight underneath, a House Finch at feeder, a mystery flycatcher that turned out to be an Acadian, and a Baltimore Oriole.

Each year I promise myself to be a bit more discriminating in the art I show on this blog and elsewhere. My intent it so show more finished work and less working sketches, often of not the best quality. But guess what? It's easier said than done, this producing finished quality work idea.

I've struggled for the last week with small watercolor sketches in my Stillman and Birn 5.5x8.5 Gamma sketchbook. These are all based on photos from Magee, the things I took after I'd done some field sketches. The sketchbooks themselves are fine.

But most of the sketches leave something if not a lot to be desired, especially when you consider the beauty of the birds when seen live.  And of course there is size. I had one Black-throated Green land within a hand's reach of me. At that close range you see how delicate and really tiny they are. All the more reason to pursue my ongoing goal of doing them justice in paint. I've seen thousands of illustrations of warblers. I've seen exceedingly few successful paintings of them.

I recently read a post elsewhere about watercolor not actually being hard. But it is. It is exceedingly hard. It's only easy if you really don't understand how great watercolor can be, for instance in the work of Winslow Homer or John Singer Sargent, both of whose work is full of light and life. If you only use watercolor to fill in areas with color that is something else again. It still requires skill I think. But it completely ignores the sense of transparency and light which in my humble opinion is the only reason to even use watercolor.

A Democracy of Birders

Bay-breasted Warbler and other birds. Field sketch by Ken Januski.

American Redstart and other birds. Field sketch by Ken Januski.

 

Horned Lark and other birds. Field sketch by Ken Januski.

 



Magnolia Warbler and other birds. Field sketch by Ken Januski.

 

Prothonotary Warbler and other birds. Field sketch by Ken Januski.

 

I had a hard time deciding on a title for this post about field sketches of birds seen at Magee Marsh in Ohio last week. The most notable thing I think for just about anyone who was there was the number of birds, though there was in fact one very quiet day. For me the high point might have been when a woman who had wandered up to watch me sketch a Blackburnian Warbler from life said something like "You've made my day. This is even better than the birds, especially with all these cameras." What she meant I think was how refreshing it was to see someone sketching and by inference interacting with the birds amidst all the people with their cameras, and whirring motor drives, and flashes, and big lenses, and big tripods.

Since I value field sketching so highly it was easy to make that the title of this post. Instead though I chose "A Democracy of Birders." I did this because I think it is interesting philosophically. It is very easy to get frustrated at Magee Marsh this time of year, perhaps even more so during The Biggest Week in American Birding , an organized event that has gone on for about the last 10 days there. It surely adds to the crowds.

Between rude and oblivious photographers who think nothing of plunking their huge tripods in the middle of the boardwalk and then planting their 200 plus pound selves behind them so that no one can get through and drivers who have to stop for every Canada gosling on the causeway to the boardwalk turning each two minute trip into at least a ten minute trip it's easy to get frustrated. But I think most people feel it's well worth the frustrations because of the wealth of birds to be seen, most at such close range that most people can only dream about.

If you listen to the conversations you soon realize that the level of skill and experience is almost infinite, from the most expert to the most beginning and everywhere in between. And as far as I can tell the excitement and joy of seeing so many birds so close, most of them neo-tropical migrants, makes up for everything else. Barriers between old-style birders and technology-loving birders, experienced and inexperienced birders seem to disappear, or at least be greatly sublimated, in the experience of seeing so many striking birds in so many numbers and at such close proximity.

So that's the nature of the title. The last week, The Biggest Week in American Birding, really did show a democracy of birders, a democracy in all its varied and sometimes uncomfortable or even unwelcome( I'm thinking of big lenses and tripods when I say this) diversity.

The diversity of birds however was as welcome as could be. So from the top I'll enumerate the birds portrayed. They are only some of the many we saw.

Page one: Blue-winged Warbler and Yellow-throated Vireo, actually seen here before the trip, and a Bay-breasted Warbler on left and a Nashville Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler and American Woodcock on right.

Page two: Red-eyed Vireo, and a distant sparrow viewed through scope and finally identified as the familiar Swamp Sparrow on left, and male American Redstart, Rose-breasted Grosbeak and head of an American Woodcock on right.

Page three: singing Yellow Warbler and subtly beautiful Warbling Vireo on left and Horned Lark and Least Sandpiper on right.

Page four: Least Flycatcher, Magnolia Warbler and horrible rendering of Sandhill Crane in flight on left and Black-throated Blue Warbler and Ovenbird on right.

Finally on page five: Black-throated Green Warbler and Northern Parula on left and Blackburnian Warbler and Prothonotary Warbler on the right.

Given the plethora of some of the world's most beautiful birds all within close range it's hard to know what to do: enjoy them, soak them in, keep staring trying to capture all that's there in your memory, take photos, sketch. Though I've always tried to do field sketches when you have this seemingly once in a lifetime opportunity it's easy to try to preserve it in film. I'm sure that explains much of the sense of camera-driven birders. But my own experience is that the results are always lacking in emotional resonance. Even on this trip I succumbed to taking quite a few photos. But when I did I was no longer engaged with the bird.

To get around this I started off each day sketching. Only when I'd done a satisfactory sketch or felt it was such a rare view of a bird did I take the camera out of its case and start shooting. For myself I have to say it's been tremendously satisfying not just to see these birds but also have these sketches of them. I just wish I could stay there for a month or so to truly do them justice.

Starting To Be Fun...................

I know. I know. I said I would not publish any work until it showed a little more improvement. This sketch may not qualify. But I've been having fun with it. Last week I changed from pen and ink to pencil. I love pen and ink but it's mighty unforgiving, especially when drawing from life. Pencil allows far more deftness of touch, far more variety of line weight. I also added watercolor and waterbrushes about a week ago.

The waterbrushes are new to me and a real treat. Today I was able to add the third component: watercolor pencils. Watercolor pencils combined with waterbrushes is a great combination, just as Pam Johnson Brickell said in my earlier post about drawing birds from life. Pam, you are right. This is really enjoyable!


You get the sensitivity of pencil and the instant paint quality of watercolor with just two drawing utenstils: a waterbrush and a few watercolor pencils.
So now what had been a real struggle, requiring a great deal of no-pain-no-gain philosophizing, has become something enjoyable.

People really learn best I think when they get some reward for their efforts and not just constant failure with the promise of some faroff gain. Drawing birds from life is difficult so it's important to get some reward as you go about it. There is the reward of knowing that you're understanding what birds look like much better than you used to. But it's important to get a visual reward as well. I think that will happen, both for me and others, with this great combination of tools.

One side note: snow must be on the way. Our feeders were full of some of our more uncommon visitors such as a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet and Carolina Wren. That should make for more drawing opportunities tomorrow. And when you look forward to drawing birds from life as an "opportunity" you know that it's starting to be fun.

Bay-breasted Bonus

Can you tell the difference? Yes, the Bay-breasted Warbler is a based on a photo. Though we DID get snow we also got a lot of wind and there have been very few birds at the feeder. So I finally gave up on drawing from life today and decided to try the new waterbrush and watercolor pencils on a sketch based on a photo. This Bay-breated warbler was very difficult to identify when we saw him at John Heinz Wildlife Refuge in Philadelphia in late May, 2008. Only the bay swatches and strongly defined black and white wings confirmed the identification. If nothing else this illustrates the use of visual clues to identify a bird when you don't get the best look. It also illustrates the difficulty of drawing warblers from life. The numerous Bay-breasted warblers that we saw this day were constantly moving. I had to choose between just indentifying them with my binoculars, trying to draw them in the brief time I could see them, or trying to get some photos(this was the only successful one) to use for later reference. All In all it's probably best just to look at them in binoculars and t try to seal the visual memory. When working from photos there's just too much missing information. So you may be able to draw a semblance of the subject but in the back of your mind you know that you're missing something essential.

This really doesn't seem to deserve a new post. So I'm tacking it on to yesterdays.