Marinating Snipe -- Black Vulture in Tuliptree

Wilson's Snipe at Ottawa NWR. In-progress Acylic Painting by Ken Januski.

Perhaps marinating isn't the best word. Unlike food this painting will not get more flavorful by just sitting there. My intent is to indicate that I'm not doing much with it right now. It is just sitting there.

Actually I've done a lot of painting on it since last post but it really doesn't look that much different. At this point I think I just need to set it aside, i.e. let it marinate, and see if I eventually can figure out what needs to be done to finish it.

I am largely happy with it right now both in terms of art and in terms of what you see when birding. I like the composition, colors, etc. I also like the fact that it may take awhile to see all of the birds including the more distant Lesser Yellowlegs. That's just the way you see, or don't see, birds.

Black Vulture in Tuliptree at Schuykill Center for Environmental Education.

Today was scheduled to be the annual Philadelphia Mid-winter Bird Census. But predictions of all day rain forced a rescheduling until tomorrow. In preparation for it I did some scouting earlier this week at the Manayunk Canal and Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.

Black Vultures have become somewhat common recently in SE Pennsylvania, even in winter. But I normally see them in flight, lazily gliding. Yesterday four of them  landed right above me in a Tulptree at the Schuylkill Center. I got a kick out of the juxtaposition of these large black birds with the delicate seedheads of the Tuliptree. Thus this photo. Eventually the subject may make its way into a painting or print.

GBBC Day One - Mergansers and Grebes

Great Backyard Bird Count 2013 - Day One. Pied-billed Grebes, Common Mergansers and Black Vulture at Manayunk Canal. Watercolor by Ken Januski

We started the Great Backyard Bird Count for 2013 by birding Manayunk Canal and a small stretch of the Schuylkill River which joins it. The watercolor above is a composite of birds seen today, drawn and painted primarily from memory. I did do one field sketch of an oddly posed Great Blue Heron but it's not good enough to show.

So instead I thought it made sense to do a quick watercolor from memory. We saw the Common Mergansers and Pied-billed Grebes together though not quite as close together as this indicates. They were in the Schuylkill River near where it joins the Manayunk Canal. It was also nice to see one Black Vulture so I've added him behind them, though in actuality I never saw him on that side of the river. Artistic liberty!

I don't see Common Mergansers all that often and never quite as close as this indicates. Pied-billed Grebes I see more often than the merganser, and closer, but still not all that often. So I first did this strictly from memory then looked at my photos and other references to fine tune them. This is a very rough sketch with very little detail. But its purpose is not to serve as a field guide, nor as great art. Just a reminder of an enjoyable day out birding in winter.