A Finished Piping Plover Woodcut

Piping Plover at 'The Meadows' in Cape May, NJ. Multi-block Reduction Woodcut by Ken Januski.

Piping Plover at 'The Meadows' in Cape May, NJ. Multi-block Reduction Woodcut by Ken Januski

Well I kept it pretty simple. I added a third color on second woodblock which is barely visible, mainly toward the top. On the first woodblock, which was printed last, I printed black, and then just a few areas of orange, mainly in parts of the bill and legs but also scattered throughout the background. The third color on the first block really added almost nothing but I decided to keep small portions of it.

I'm happy with this print. I did what is next to impossible for me: keep it simple, also known as the KISS principle, a concept I first came across in computer programming: Keep it Simple Stupid! It probably applies in art as well. Don't trip over your own complications.

I wish the photos did justice to the print. They make it seem a bit crude I think and the blue/gray works much better than it seems to here. Perhaps I'll try more photos later. I've been surprisingly unhappy with my photos of prints recently but I'm not really sure why that is.

The print is 7x9 inches, with the image itself being 4x6. It is printed with Daniel Smith water soluble relief inks on Rives Lightweight printing paper. It is an edition of 12.

I've written about Piping Plovers numerous times. You can find the various post by using the search box at the bottom of this page. Though estimates vary the most recent data I could find in a quick search showed a total world population of 8000. In the US they seem evenly split between the East Coast and the Midwest.

Obviously they are a cute bird. But when you realize how few of them exist in the entire world you realize that they are far more than just cute. These were seen on the beach portion of 'The Meadows' at Cape May, NJ a few years ago. They are cute but also tough. Let's hope they're tough enough to withstand all of their challenges.

Piping Plover Woodcut Continued

Piping Plover at 'The Meadows'. Multi-block woodcut proof by Ken Januski.

So far so good. I've kept this simple. This is still a proof on copier paper but I have printed the ochre and blue-gray colors on good Rives Lightweight paper as part of an edition. Since the black of the first block will probably be the last block printed I keep testing it on proofs to see what it might look like and give me some idea as to what to do next.

I do still need an orange for bills and legs. Other than that it's really a question of keeping it simple or trying to get subtle with added colors, or even a new block, in the background.

By the way the Japanese method of woodcut, from what I can tell from my uneducated background, is to carve outlines and then print color within that. The Western European way, and the way I first tried, dispenses with outline and just carves and gouges to get the subject down. This is a vast oversimplification from someone who's pretty new to printmaking.

Nonetheless this is probably the most linear work I've done so far in the sense of carving out just the outlines of the subject on a separate block. There is something appealing about that though also the danger of looking too much like a cartoon or stained glass window, at least in my humble and personal opinion.

So it's odd for me to be working this way. But I do like having the solid outlines of the main subject there to anchor and pull together the entire print. Because it's so unusual for me I am tempted to just keep this simple and not start getting too subtle and finicky with the background. I might faint if I ever finish a simple, uncomplicated print. Time will tell..............

A Simple, So Far, Piping Plover Woodcut

Piping Plover at 'The Meadows'. Woodcut Proof by Ken Januski.

There's something appealing to me about the Shina woodblocks that I bought a few months ago. Perhaps the wood has a gentler surface than linoleum. I'm not sure. I also very much liked the way I was able to combine wood blocks in the Hummingbird Hawk Moth multiple block woodcut of a few months ago.

So with that as inspiration I've started this new multi-block woodcut based on a drawing I did last spring of a couple of Piping Plover seen at the beach of 'The Meadows' in Cape May, NJ.

It's almost impossible for me to keep anything simple. But I'm going to try here. Perhaps a gray of some sort, and then orange touches for bill and feet. It would be nice to do a woodcut/linocut that stayed simple from start to finish.

By the way this is printed with Daniel Smith water-soluble inks. This is the first time I've tried them and so far I'm pleased.

Dragonfly Distractions

Dragonfly Swarm at Dusk. Charcoal by Ken Januski.

We went to a meeting of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club last week to hear a talk on Is There Life After Birding? We knew the answer since we spend a lot of our time outside looking at things other than birds. Nonetheless it was interesting to see the speaker as well as a number of the audience indicate similar interests.

A few days later we were birding Houston Meadows and I had to recall the talk. We were seeing not only interesting birds and dragonflies, but also butterflies and wasps. I believe it was that same night, almost at dark, when Jerene saw huge dragonflies swarming about our backyard. That's what is illustrated at top. Between the dark and the mosquitoes we didn't stay out long. I'd just told someone how rare dragonflies were in our backyard then this to disprove what I'd just said!

I still haven't identified these large dragonflies. Based strictly on shape I might guess Common Green Darner. But there is the oddity of the night flight. I don't think they're known as a night flyer. Is it a crepuscular species, one that flies mainly at dusk? We saw a couple more last night but couldn't stay out. Tonight or tomorrow we'll try to be better prepared and see if we can identify them, assuming that they're still here. 

Female Blue Dasher. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski

The day after the night flight we were of  course keeping our eyes open for large dragonflies. We saw none but we did see this small beauty. I was able to get within a few inches to photograph it ( I've learned with dragonflies to shoot a picture first then try to sketch because they rarely sit still). Of course this one sat there for at least 15 minutes, then returned that same evening. What a beauty it was and obviously one we'd never seen before. Or so I thought. As I neared the end of Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East I finally found it, a female Blue Dasher. The shape of the abdomen should have given me a clue. It's a distinctive shape as far as I can tell. But the colors were all wrong. As with birds the males and females of the same species sometimes differ greatly in appearance.

As I read about it I read that it is called a Dasher because of its quick movements. So what explains the fact that it sat in one place for at least 15 minutes? Does the dashing refer to quickness of movement not frequency of movment? Only more study will tell.

In any case this seems to have been the week of dragonflies. Every day it seems we've seen new ones or seen old ones anew. It's amazing to me how exciting this can be. And then of course there is the thrill of trying to portray them in art. The watercolor above is just a quick study in the wonderful Stillman and Birn Gamma sketchbook. As usual I'm amazed at how well I can draw, and erase, in these books. The paper is a bit thin for a finished watercolor, at least if you keep working on it as I do, but it's perfect for studies. As I've said before I think they are a great addition to the artist's toolkit. With my recent printmaking I've not used them. But it was nice to pull them out for all the sketches on this page. I'm sure you'll eventually seem some prints featuring dragonflies.

Piping Plover. Watercolor Sketch by Ken Januski.

I'm very happy with my recent Sapsucker print and I think that a large reason for that is the underlying sketch. I think it does really capture some of the poses of Sapsuckers. With that in mind I've looked through all of my photos recently, trying to find one where I might do a charcoal or pencil sketch that really captures the sense of a bird and its movements. That was my attempt here with the Piping Plover. I don't think it's successful enough to form the basis for a new print. But I thought it worth showing just as an indication of where my prints might be going............

And finally a belated birthday to one of the greatest draftsmen ever, Rembrandt van Rijn. Thanks to Google for pointing out that yesterday was his 407th birthday. I recently read a book on Ukiyo-e prints that suggested that Rembrandt and Hokusai were probably the two best draftsmen in all history. I suspect that the author is correct.

Avoiding Cliches

Piping Plovers at 'The Meadows'. Watercolor by Ken Januski

I have a lot of photos that I've taken of birds over the years. This may come as a surprise to some given how much I write about the problems of relying on photos in art. It's true. I think more bad art has come out because of the use of photos than vice versa, not that this view is based on any scientific studies.

I suppose it's similar to birders I meet who want to rely on some digital technology to confirm the bird that they see or hear. Yes you may get an ID that way, just as you may get some likeness of a bird if you rely solely on photos. But what's the point? You're missing all the enjoyment of learning something, of interacting with the world, of portraying the excitement of that interaction. Would you rather interact with the bird or the photo of the bird?

Still when I started I knew so little about the structure of birds that I found I was also trying to take photos of them when I saw them rather than just look at them or try to sketch them. Now over six years later I tend to look and sketch first and only take photos later. Even with photos as a secondary motive I've ended up with a fair amount of them.

And when I'm searching for an idea for a new painting or print I often flip through them. In doing so there are always a fair number that I reject out of hand: poorly seen bird, dull composition, impossible pose, and quite often, cliche, or fear of cliche.

That's always the case with Piping Plovers. They always seem impossibly cute, at least by human standards. I'm sure they don't look cute to the nearby American Oystercatchers. Still I know that they'll seem cute. I can't even tell if that's why I'm attracted to them. But I also know that no subject should be out of bounds for a true artist. A talented artist can always breathe new life into overdone subjects.

Still that fear of cliche stays with me. Everytime I look through my many Piping Plover photos something scares me off. And that is the one beauty of the surprise project of using a number of Stillman and Birn sketchbooks for examples for a demonstration on their use. For me it takes the pressure off. I can give subjects I normally shy away from a try. That's been true of almost all of the work I've done over the last week, with the exception of the Eastern Phoebe.

Today's Piping Plovers was another. I decided to concentrate on drawing the birds, something that turned out to be far more complicated than I expected, and then to just experiment with Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble crayons for color. I also  decided to stick with the smaller 7x10 Gamma sketchbook, one that really doesn't like too much water.

I thought I could get around the problem of too much water by just being spare with both crayon and water to turn the marks into washes. And that's exactly what I did. I just made faint crayon marks on the birds and then used a small waterbrush to move the color around into larger areas. With the sand I basically just made small dots or marks with the crayons then used the waterbrush to smear them and blend them into one another. This was an experiment but I think it turned out pretty well.

One additional thing is the luminosity of the Neocolors. This is something I really liked. Though I knew the background here might be too simple and too boring I hoped that the richness of the colors would be enough to offset that. I think, at least to these unbiased eyes, that it turned out that way.

Waiting on a Hurricane, and Tumult

I can think of better things to do than wait on the likely power outage and other discomforts that Hurricane Sandy will most likely bring to us in Philadelphia. We've been lucky in our years here to have escaped much serious storm damage. But it seems we'll need to be really lucky to continue that string.

So after  doing as much storm preparation as is reasonable and possible given how many things have been sold out at stores I decided it made sense to put the final touches on preparation for my  3 person Manayunk Roxborough Art Center show 'Wild at Art' which opens next Sunday. I've decided to exhibit mainly prints. I now have 15 framed and ready to go.

And I plan to show the large acrylic of the two immature Little Blue Herons at Morris Arboretum. But I'd also like to  show some watercolors. As I looked through them today I  finally decided on the small 5x7 inch watercolor of a Swamp Sparrow also seen at Morris Arboretum. I did some minor tweaking on it today and then decided to show it, assuming that is that there is enough room.

I'm very happy with my new watercolor of the Saddlebags dragonfly, Savannah Sparrow and Pumpkins so that was a certain entrant. It is shown newly matted and framed above. It looks a bit cockeyed due to poor photography. In person everything has the expected right angles.

Finally I decided on the watercolor of seven Piping Plovers seen at Stone Harbor last year.  I hate to think what some of my favorite birding places in Cape May and Stone Harbor will look like in a few days. There are a couple of reasons for including this. One is that some people write off bird art and wildlife art as 'pretty' art. It's easy to understand since much of it is. Given the beauty of birds it's a difficult task to show that beauty without verging into sentimentality. I don't think this painting could be considered pretty.

The other reason is a bit more serious. I've written about Piping Plovers in the past. Each time I'm newly struck by the fact that less than 2000 exist! When you see them they can come right up to you, the picture of innocence. They just don't seem rare or threatened for their very existence as a species. Just recently while flipping through a environmental/birding magazine I noticed a headline about 2000 being in existence. I've not had time to go back and read it. But it does remind me of just how rare these birds are. And how threatened they are, including by the idiots with the 'Piping Plover Tastes Like Chicken' bumper stickers.

I should add that the tumult of Hurricane Sandy seems appropriate for the tumultuous times in the U.S. and abroad. I try to avoid politics here, largely because I think people prefer places where they can take  a break from it, those that is who aren't on permanent break from it. And opinions obviously differ. I backed Obama as a practical matter not because of his oratory. That was a strike  against him to me and I think it's harmed his performance as President. Such facility, in art or in politics, can be helpful in the short run and harmful in the long run. So I have mixed feelings about him. Still I think there was no doubt that he clobbered Romney in the last debate and showed how shallow and ignorant Romney is when it comes to foreign policy. So I've been shocked to see intelligent talking heads talk about how he won or showed he's got the right stuff to be President.

I just cite this to show how thoroughly opinions differ. But one thing did strike me in the debate. Romney learned a new word: 'tumult.' The world truly is in tumult, just as areas affected by Hurricane Sandy will be. But the world is always in tumult if you're President of the United States. It's  not a game. It's a  complex world and I'm sure far, far moreso if you're the President. But one thing I'm sure all presidents of the last 50 years would agree on is that the world is tumultuous, as is the job. To look upon the world in tumult today as Romney  has and express dismay at it, as though peace in the world is as simple as just  saying it, immediately disqualifies him for the office.We really can't afford to have someone so vacillating and inexperienced in the world as our next president.

The .1 Percent

The newest edition of 'Bird Conservation' from the American Bird Conservancy focused on the dangers to the shorebirds of the worlds. A number that jumped out at me was the total estimated world population of Piping Plovers, around 6500. If that number is correct the watercolor and gouache painting above represents about one tenth of one percent of the entire world population.
A little over three years ago I wrote a post on Piping Plovers. In it I covered the same theme.

When you see a lone bird, or even more a couple as I showed in the previous post, they are the cutest birds in the world. The problem with this is that for all that it attracts some people to them it probably alienates others as sentimentality. Would people feel the same about them if they looked more like Turkey Vultures? But this isn't the birds fault. They just happen to have an appearance that most humans will I think translate as cute, loveable, harmless, something to be protected.
The most brutal example of the other side of the coin is the bumper sticker I saw at least 10 years ago that said 'Piping Plover Taste Like Chicken.' The ignorance betrayed in this is hard to ignore. Obviously those who designed it and those who sport it on their vehicles think that they're really quite clever. Or course they're not; just ignorant.
But behind it there is a sentiment that occurs in all environmental battles, the fact that much of the audience surrounding the environment or species to be saved considers it worthless or certainly down toward the bottom of things it personally values. I've never asked someone who sports such a bumper sticker what they think it means but my guess is that they think it is a funny joke on people who love cute things and a comment on what their own values are. I'd further guess that their values are pretty self-centered.
I think that civilization, society, or whatever you want to call it, depends upon something broader than self-centeredness, or at least a self-centeredness that realizes that what is good for one's community is also good for oneself. The mighty, isolated island of a person, is a bit of a myth. Recent American politics seems to have completely forgotten this and all the politicians who realize that a concern for the common good, often involving a stomach-churning compromise with people or ideas you dislike, is necessary are either being driven out of office or resigning.
Perhaps I'm misremembering but I recall reading in a new biography of William Buckley, of all things, that there was a time when true Republicans considered it almost a requirement to be concerned with society at large. That is now gone, and I'd say from both parties. Everything seems motivated by self-interest, which in turn seems fed by a voting electorate that also is primarily concerned with self-interest not a concern for their community or society at large. I hope I'm wrong about the voting public. But I don't think so. If I were the extreme fringe of both parties wouldn't get elected.
Well this is a far tangent from where I began. My point though is that conservation really requires a concern for society at large and for society in the future as well as today. It's always seemed to me that the first lesson taught to real estate developers is 'Destroy First, Think About the Consequences Later.' I saw this in my own neighborhood over the last few years as a very old Dogwood and other trees were destroyed so that something else could be built. Of course if never was. Who knows why. But I do know that the dogwood is now gone. Something 100 years in the making most likely. Gone without a thought. And replaced by a small gravel parking lot that looks like an afterthought. Like what do we do now that there's not going to be anything built here and we've destroyed what was here.
It is the idiocy almost criminality of such thinking that makes me always side with conserving the environment first, not chopping down trees first and then thinking about what to do next. What is good for society at large and in the future is sometimes hard to gauge. Maybe some compromises need to be made in order to keep jobs in the community. Maybe it is wrong to destroy the traditional livelihood of people in order to save a species that few of them know or appreciate. So thoughtful compromises probably need to be made. But until we have a society that has some interest in 'thoughtful compromise' I'll stand with enviormentalists and these 'cute' birds. Once they're gone, they're gone for good, with no one knowing the consequences.

Field Sketching Around Cape May - 2012

It's hard to imagine anything I enjoy more than seeing birds that I don't see that often and being able to sketch them. For seeing a lot of birds, both in numbers and variety, it's always hard to beat Cape May, NJ and the surrounding area. There are probably/possibly other places in the US that are just as good. It's hard to beat Magee Marsh in Ohio for warblers. But Cape May is very close to us and it's the area I know best.

 One problem with sketching at Cape May is that there is just too much to see. Should I sketch or try somewhere else to see more birds? Should I also take some reference photos for birds for which I have no good photos? There are always such decisions at hand. But I've gotten better at spending more time sketching. And my wife humors me and doesn't complain about needing to move on.

 That said above is one of my sketches from this trip. All are ballpoint pen in a Moleskine sketchbook. Above three Black Skimmers on a spit of land, with a Laughing Gull off to the left.

Above is the first page of field sketches from the trip: an American Oystercatcher, in the water and preening. That's why you don't see the feet. Below a Bonaparte's Gull that started off in the water then moved to land. And finally a Piping Plover. The Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers were both nesting in same area so it was a great opportunity to sketch both. We ended most days with a quick trip, and sketch, through that area.

One of the other endangered birds that are protected along Cape May beaches, along with the Black Skimmer and the Piping Plover, is the Least Tern. I was afraid that we were going to end the trip without seeing them. Then on our last night, on the far side of a pond at 'The Meadows' we saw one. That is him above, along with a Laughing Gull and the head of a Piping Plover.

I don't know all that much about shorebirds. But I have the vague recollection that they feed in different areas of any 'shore.' As in many things the bullies crowd out the smaller birds. So it took us a while to find one of our favorite little shorebirds, the Least Sandpiper. He is at top above, along with a Red Knot and a hovering Forster's Tern, just waiting for the right moment to feed.

My last sketch was done this morning as we used our last few hours at Heislerville WMA. There were thousands of birds there, probably 90% being Dunlin. But Black-bellied Plovers, Short-billed Dowitchers, Least and Semi-palmated Sandpipers were scattered about, along with yellowlegs and skimmers. In this last sketch I tried to pick out Black-bellied Plovers, Short-billed Dowitchers and Dunlin to show their comparative size and shape. These are less than half of the sketches and I'll probably show more soon. When I got home the mail included 'Bird Conservation' magazine from American Bird Conservancy. I was just realizing how much I enjoy seeing shorebirds and this new issue summarizes many of the threats these fascinating and beautiful birds face. It is well worth reading, and well worth joining American Bird Conservancy.

Pastel and Charcoal Piping Plovers Continued

These benign looking Piping Plover have given me a surprising amount of trouble over the last week or two. First there was the disastrous watercolor of a week ago. Then over the last two days this combination pastel/charcoal.

The problem really has nothing to do with the plovers. It's the background that causes problems. I'm trying to keep both the brilliant light of the sand and the variations in tone: yellow/ochre and blue. It seems like I can't have both. If I accentuate the color contrast it no longer looks like brilliant whitish sand. Today I had the opposite problem. I erased the pastels enough that there was a more uniform light color. But then it looked dull!



In the last and probably final version above I've made the top part of the drawing a bit darker and richer in color. There was no such orange on the sand or in the photo. The last blue area of shade was not so dark and blue. But I felt that I really needed to differentiate this more distant area from the more sun-drenched area where the plovers stood. So I've taken some artistic license in what I hope is both a good drawing and a drawing that is more or less faithful to its subject.

I have to add that its very overcast today. After I work on the drawing for awhile I take it outside to spray on fixative. What a surprise! A brand new drawing when seen in the brighter light of outdoors. Mainly it's looked dull and monotonous. So that's one more reason that I added the darker, richer colors at top.

Piping Plovers are obviously very beautiful birds. This is the third version of a painting or drawing that I've done based on the photos I took of them in April at Cape May. I think it's time to change subjects for awhile. But I may still try one more watercolor in the future. I'd still like to get them and their surroundings in one brilliantly lit painting.

Pastel and Charcoal Piping Plovers

I wasn't happy with my last watercolor of the Piping Plovers. I've reworked it once again but am not posting it now. Instead I started a new pastel and charcoal drawing of the same subject. I'm a little more confident in my abilities in charcoal, and to a lesser degree pastel, than I am in watercolor.

I'm including the first two versions of the drawing. I'm fairly confident that by the time I'm finished I'll be happy with the work.

Leave Well Enough Alone

Well sometimes things just don't work out. I'm afraid that's the case with the Piping Plovers watercolor. I'm including four or five different photos here showing the various tacks I took in trying to salvage this watercolor. It's a bit painful to me to watch but it may prove informative to some. Not all artworks are successes but sometimes it's interesting to see the process as it goes along.

After letting it dry I decided that the top half was just too dark. It would be better to make that area more uniform in tone and color. But because I'd already worked it so thoroughly I couldn't figure out how to salvage it, in particular how to put a lighter area on top of the dark blue area.

I began by going opaque and adding colors with white added to them to the top half. That looked bad so I decided to use a wet sponge to remove as much paint as possible. The top photo shows this stage.



That got rid of the darker areas but also created an overall light muddy tone to the top. All white paper disappears when you do this. You get a lighter overall tone but also one that is permanently muddy. So I thought maybe I could use a color at full strength, particularly one that was somewhat opaque, to try to revive the area. It might just be opaque enough to cover up the gray tone.




That helped somewhat but the top still looked very dull. So I experimented some more. Stupidly I went back to a method that had already failed, adding more white to the top as seen above. That was a disaster as you can see in the photo above.



Finally I went back in with some undiluted, full strength colors. My thought was that they might be bright enough, since they were full strength, to overcome the muddiness. The danger of course is that now I was painting more like oils or gouache and not at all like watercolor. But I'd become desperate to try to salvage this.

You see the results above. At this point I think the watercolor looked worse than when I started reworking it so I decided to leave it sit overnight. I didn't think there was much more I could do with it.




This morning I looked at it again. The ochrish background just seemed too strong so I tried some small experiments, scrubbing out, scraping the paper, and adding in some more color washes. At this point I think it's done. It somewhat holds together as a painting. The original background as seen in the photo of brilliant sand, with blue and orange washes, is completely gone. Instead this looks more like some sort of hilly terrain. So my original idea of showing the brilliant sand in its two colors has completely failed.

Still nothing ventured, nothing gained. Readers might wonder why I'm showing such a disaster. Well I hope that maybe it's informative. Most artists go through similar problems but often don't want to mention their failures. Most likely this is a failure. But the thing to do is learn from it and go on to the next success. That's the story of art.

I Don't Brake for Drying Waterclors...

But I really ought to. I decided to try another small watercolor based on photos I took of Piping Plovers in April. I posted an earlier watercolor of them in May I think. One thing that fascinated me about the scene was the way that the sand alternated between an orange ochre and a gray blue. I decided that I wanted to try to get that into this watercolor

The other side of this scenario is that from a distance the plovers completely disappear into the sand. So though it has orange and blue casts it also looks like just one color from a distance. So as I developed this watercolor I didn't really have a good plan. I just improvised with the sand, going back and forth between a strong contrast and a weak one. I also used a broad brush, rarely trying to get the texture of the sand. My problem is that I just wouldn't wait for the first coat of watercolor to dry.



So as I went back and forth with different ideas about the sand I kept going back into wet watercolor. Sometimes this works. At other times it can lead to a muddy mess.

I'm not sure where I'm at here but I suspect I'm pretty close to a muddy mess. So I decided to stop and write this post, forcing myself to let the watercolor dry, and also forcing myself to take a break and look at it without a paintbrush in my hand. Most likely I won't touch this again until tomorrow. I hope I can do something to resolve any possible muddy messes.

1 of 1600

Please don't take this as gospel truth. The figure 1 of 1600 refers to the number of pairs of Piping Plovers on the East Coast of the U.S. It was a rough figure given to us by a field biologist at 'The Meadows' of The Nature Conservancy in Cape May, NJ. Further research online found an estimate of less than 2000 nesting pairs in 2008. Wikipedia says the total world population in 2003 was about 6410. So I don't know a hard and fast figure.

Nonetheless I hope my point is clear: in this small watercolor you are looking at only one of 1600 such bird pairs in existence on the East Coast and two out of a total population of 6410. They are rare, threatened, and special. How often can you look at something whose existence is so severely threatened? What should be done about it?

I won't go on about the ethics of this. I try to avoid such big questions on this blog. So all I will say is that I think it is a great mistake to let any species disappear, especially through neglect.

In talking to the biologist last week I and my wife expected that we would find that the greatest threat to the newborn plover chicks would be human. But that's not the case. Here Laughing Gulls and even Ghost Crabs are greater predators. Nature is complex and things aren't always what they seem. In terms of overall threat to all Piping Plovers I'm sure that loss of beach habitat is at or near the top.

Because Piping Plovers are almost impossible to see when they are not moving we were very fortunate to find them running around all over the beach like windup toys on our first day at Cape May last week. Photos taken then were the basis of the quick watercolor at the top. The next day we were out with a birding group and it was almost impossible to find the birds because most of the time they were sitting still. They are a tremendous example of protective coloration. If humans can't see them then neither can many of their predators.



If the Piping Plovers are an example of 1 in 1600 Heislerville Wildlife Management Area showed the opposite, let's say 1600 of 1600 shorebirds in flight all at the same time. When we first arrived at Matt's Landing at Heislerville last week we saw a number of shorebirds standing in shallow water amidst thousands of small brown, rounded rocks. It was only when I focused my scope on the 'rocks' that I realized that they were birds! Almost all of them were dunlins.

When the shorebirds fly, as in the photo above, they create the equivalent of an optical illusion. There is an explosion of flickering movement, light and shadow. It is really an extraordinary experience. More extraordinary, on a less visceral level, is the knowledge that here, in contrast to the Piping Plovers, you are experiencing nature's profusion. Though again this is misleading. I'm not an expert on shorebirds. In fact I'm pretty new to them. But my guess is that the birds seen here, dunlins, short-billed dowitchers, black-bellied plovers, semi-palmated plovers, semi-palmated sanderlings and greater yellowlegs are also in decline. So unfortunately the sense of profusion is somewhat false. There is no denying the number of birds seen. And it is thrilling to see them, as they stop briefly here on their way to the Arctic tundra to breed. But they are far fewer than they were in the past. Still it was a tremendous sight to see.

One of the extraordinary aspects of Cape May, NJ for birders is that there are so many different birds in different habitats. So although I've talked mainly about shorebirds in this post, we also saw warblers, other passerines, hawks, ducks and other birds in great numbers. This is good and bad. The good is the experience of nature's profusion. The bad is the realization that forces such as geography funnel birds to the Cape May area so that you see an abnormal representation of the bird population. But my feeling, like most others I imagine, is to be thankful that we can take advantage of it. For anybody who does wish to bird the Cape May area I'd highly recommend 'Birds and Birding at Cape May' by Clay and Pat Sutton. And if you're there don't miss the walks given by the Cape May Bird Observatory. As a woman we directed to the CMBO walk at Heislerville told us afterwards: "That was the best six dollars I ever spent!"

I brought along my art materials but didn't have time to do anything but take photos. So I'm sure I'll be posting a lot of new work based on them. But I also intend to make a greater effort to do more work from life. One thing that hit me as I looked through all the photographs I took is that, though I liked many of them, even the ones I liked looked like, well......., photographs! They do not look like what I saw. For that there's art!