I loved working on this Wilson’s warbler for a recent commission! Wilson’s warblers are so delightful to encounter, especially the males with their little black hats. They’re often found near streams, hopping through dense thickets. I placed this one sneaking out onto a willow branch. 🌿
June 28, 2018 – Crescent-chested Warbler (Oreothlypis superciliosa)
These warblers are found in parts of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They eat insects and other invertebrates, picking their prey from foliage, often foraging in mixed-species flocks. Their cup-shaped nests are constructed from mosses, grass, hair, and sometimes pine needles, on or near the ground. Females incubate the eggs alone, but both parents feed the chicks.
Kirtland’s Warbler doodle in Autodesk Sketchbook. I’ve been pecking away (hah) at this for over a month but probably won’t “finish” it. Maybe if I had a stylus for my phone!
Black-throated Blue Warbler (Setophaga caerulescens)
Warm-up for Inktober 2016!
I refilled an old fountain pen for this piece and got ink all over my hands, kitchen, and body in the process. In the end, I decided I prefer using my Chinese painting brushes to the fountain pen, but it was worth a shot!
These warblers are found only in three mountain ranges in Mexico, on the edges of pine-oak forests. Often foraging in pairs, they eat insects, picking them from surfaces or catching them in the air. Males become very territorial during the breeding season, singing and challenging rivals nearby. Females build cup or oven-shaped nests on the ground from grass, pine needles, and other plant materials, where they incubate three or four eggs.
In the fall of 2014, I worked as a banding intern at Point Reyes Bird Observatory, also known as Palomarin Field Station and overseen by Point Blue Conservation Science. Somehow while juggling a full-time banding schedule, studying for the bander’s certification exam, and hunting for my next job, I taught myself how to work with opaque watercolors and painted this poster for the banding lab/visitor’s center. It features all the species who breed further north and migrate to Palomarin in decent numbers for the winter (with the exceptions of Sharp-shinned Hawk, which breed in smaller numbers than are seen during migration and winter; and Wrentit, who are year-round residents, unique to the Pacific coast, and are just so g.d. charming that I couldn’t resist including). I am grateful to Steve N.G. Howell for his advice, encouragement and inexorable standards of accuracy – to which I surely failed. Original dimensions 22×30″ on cold-press watercolor paper.
The American Redstart is a coal-black warbler with vibrant orange patches. Fittingly for its Halloween color scheme, it catches insects by spooking them: a quick flash of its bright fanned tail flushes prey from nearby branches. Males are polygamous, keeping two mates in nearby but nonadjacent territories. Pictured are an adult male and a first-year male (or a female). The first-year males are commonly called “yellowstarts” because of their lighter plumage.
Can’t focus on what I’m meant to be drawing so here’s a lil bird.
I _love_ him! Seeing photos of the male splendid fairy-wren in breeding plumage is one of best things that’s happened to me on tumblr, but seeing your art of him is even better.
Have you ever seen one IRL? It sounds like they tend to hang out in arid habitats and have been displaced by urban/suburban encroachment, but my fuzzy mental database seems to indicate that your own habitat might tend in that direction, or at least that you’ve spent some quality time out in nature.
Either way, thank you for losing focus long enough to share this.
Yellow-rumped Warblers, affectionately called “butterbutts” after their most obvious fieldmark, are one hardy little bird. They winter much farther north than other warblers, most of which make for Central and South America when temperatures drop. The Yellow-rumped Warblers stay in the southern US and Mexico, eating a variety of waxy berries (something no other warbler is digestively equipped to do). In summer they head for northern Canada.
There are several subspecies which were formerly considered separate species. In the eastern US, we have the Myrtle Warbler (male pictured), while in the western US there is Audubon’s Warbler, distinct in its yellow throat and lighter ear patches. Both subspecies have drab brown winter colors, but come spring, molt into vibrant plumage. They even get a regal little crown. Two other subspecies, the Black-fronted Warbler of Mexico and Goldman’s Warbler of Guatemala, also exist.
I intended to do male and female in both winter and breeding plumage, but I got carried away and drew 4 breeding-plumage males!
August 20, 2014 – Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia)
Yellow Warblers are found throughout North America, wintering in Central and South American mangrove forests. They eat insects, including beetles, caterpillars, and wasps. Cowbirds often parasitize Yellow Warbler nests. If this happens, the warblers usually build a new nest over the old one, sometimes resulting in up to six layers.
August 28, 2014 – Black-throated Blue Warbler (Setophaga caerulescens)
These warblers spend summers in the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada and winters in the Caribbean. They prefer forested areas, although in their winter range females and males spend time in habitats at different elevations. They eat insects, plucked from the undersides of leaves, as well as small fruits. The nest is cup-shaped and made of bark glued together with spider web and saliva.
