I know it’s been a while since I posted and some people have contacted me with some concern. I am fine! Just busy and these days I do a lot of my social media posting on Facebook. I will be back here in the next few days, however, so thanks for not giving up on me.
Friday, May 16, the Mass Audubon Birdathon 2014 began at 6 p.m. sharp. Our little sub team of 5 began at the game farm in East Sandwich. The forecast was for rain showers and it was gray, windy and cool. Not perfect birding weather but we were ready.
We quickly added common and easily found birds such as red-winged blackbirds, common grackles, chickadees and titmouse. There was a willet and an osprey, a downy woodpecker and a Baltimore oriole. We were hoping for a ruffed grouse and a wood thrush as we have had them here in Birdathons past….we got the wood thrush but no grouse this year. We stopped to watch some fox kits play with their mother….
We left after dark and prepared for a very early morning the next day. We got up at 4 and were at our first meeting place at 5:30. Our big score for the early morning was the raven sighting at the canal. Not just one, but five! It began to pour rain
but we put on our game faces and made the soggy drive to Wompatuck State Park in Hingham where all the birders seem to go each spring to score the most warblers and other migrants. The rain slowed and finally stopped.
We got lots of warblers, a scarlet tanager, a very insistent veery, tons of noisy ovebirds and even a Louisiana waterthrush. We also got a yellow billed cuckoo, which was very cool for me. I also had a life bird, a blue winged warbler!
The birds were singing, buzzing and whistling like crazy. Birders were running around like crazy. Some talked, some did not. Did I mention this was a competition? We never thought we’d win so we shared info. Let’s just say some others did not….
We carried on….sometimes we just stopped and listened and enjoyed the scenery…
We got an upland sandpiper, a kildeer, horned larks, a field sparrow, a vesper sparrow and tons of prairie warblers at the Plymouth airport but not the kestrel we hoped for. We moved on to Manomet Point where we got purple sandpipers, northern gannets and bank swallows as well as assorted terns, gulls and lots of cormorants and ducks.
As you can see, once the rain cleared out it quickly became a beautiful spring day. We moved on down to the marshes in Ellisville and ended our day scoping out scoters at Sandy Neck. It was an awesome day and our little sub team ended up with 100 species in 24 hours! Our bigger team, spread state wide, ended up with about 180 species. Not too shabby! For me, the day was as much about good company as good birding as I got to hang out with my long time friends, Stu and Kathy Parsons. One of Kathy’s plover monitors, Liz, was a great addition to the team as well. Katie, who joined us for Friday night was unable to join us Saturday so I do not have her photo.
I am not a big fan of my own photos but here I am with Kathy, to commemorate a wonderful Birdathon 2014! Thank you to those of you who supported the Coastal Waterbird Program. It is still not too late to make a donation!
The theme of this year’s New England Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference was “Create Bravely: Make Your Mark.” NESCBWI is a regional chapter of the national SCBWI and the conference was held in Springfield MA this year. I only joined the organization a year ago but I did attend last year’s conference on one day to see what it was like. As you might have guessed, I liked it a lot. This year I signed up for all three days and also signed on for the portfolio and illustration challenges. What was I thinking? Yikes!
Although I have been a practicing professional artist most of my life putting together a true illustration portfolio was a challenge. I had to add quite a bit of new work and still there were some elements missing. I have a lot of work yet to do but I had to just decide to go with it and put forth what I did have. I had postcards and business cards for people to pick up as well. From what is left, a lot of people picked them up.
On Friday night everyone who had entered the challenge put out their portfolios to be viewed by all conference attendees, including art designers, agents and publishers. Talk about being nervous! I think there were 40-50 portfolios.
I put in some whimsical illustrations as well as my more detailed ones. This one is for a middle grade novel I am working on.
This colored pencil piece was done for a picture book I’m working on but I’m not sure it is relevant to what I am thinking about now. It did show my style, though so I kept it in. This and the one of the two little girls got a lot of positive feedback.
This piece was the one I entered in the illustration challenge and it was exhibited in the main hall all day Saturday. Our challenge was to read the original 1899 version of the Wizard of Oz, choose a passage and then illustrate it in a two page format, 10 x 16.” I chose the passage where Dorothy, who has fallen asleep in the poppy field, wakes to find herself surrounded by thousands of mice, including the Queen of Mice, who befriends her. This also got a lot of great feedback and it was really fun to see all the different passages people chose and how they chose to illustrate them.
I took many workshops, listened to inspiring keynote talks by Jane Yolen, Peter H. Reynolds and Laurel Snyder and also listened to several panels of publishers and agents. It was a very full weekend with very long days but I came home with so much information and inspiration it will take some time for it to all sink in. I also met so many wonderful people that I was inspired by that I was a bit overwhelmed by the time I left. The above picture I took in one of my favorite workshops, Pacing the Picture Book. As you can see, it was very hands on and lots of fun!
Now, it is time to get back in the studio and work! I attended a goal setting workshop in which I publicly announced my goal of having my picture book and dummy ready to go by July 1.
Over the past week here on Cape Cod you may have begun to see our first butterfly of the season, the mourning cloak. The mourning cloak, Nymphalis antiopa is a fairly large butterfly that is dark brownish puplish with light bands on the outer edges of the wings. These butterflies are usually seen in lightly wooded areas where the sun can reach them but where they are well camouflaged against the old leaves and bare branches.
Some people think they are seeing bats or small dark birds when they first see them, as the flight of these butterflies can be a bit erratic and sporadic in the early spring. Believe it or not, mourning cloaks actually hibernate here throughout the winter and emerge as the air warms up.
Often they seem to come out of nowhere because they blend into the background so easily…
Looks sort of like a twig, huh?
Some fun facts about mourning cloaks
You can find more information and photos at Butterfliesandmoths.org
Tomorrow will be the first day of spring! I think we are all more than ready though it looks like the cold will be with us for another week or so. I’m concentrating on the light and the daily arrival of migrant birds to help keep me in spring mode.
One of the things that happens at this time of year is one big spring cleaning out in nature. You even see this at the beach.
Whelk egg cases and skate egg cases have been tossed up all over the beaches. The long segmented tan or gold colored strand is one kind of whelk egg case. Sometimes you can open one of the little compartments and still find tiny whelk shells but mostly the cases are empty.
There are lots of old raggedy feathers left behind. Looking at this one you have to wonder how that gull was even flying.
And the shells of all sorts of mollusks like this whelk wash ashore, creating sweet vignettes against the still cold sand…
And other times all the shells are gathered up together in big piles….
I always like to think of these days as the days nature does her spring cleaning….now, if only I could be motivated to do the same!
We don’t have any poisonous snakes here on Cape Cod but we do have snakes of various sizes and kinds, including the garter snake, ribbon snake, black racer, hog nosed snake and ring necked snake to name some of them.
Late summer is the time to see baby snakes and right now they are everywhere. You have to look fast and in the right places because these little guys know how to move it and how to hide.
Ring necked snakes are small even as adults but the babies are just teensy. Check out this little guy in a hand. Ring necked snakes like to hide under old boards and in rock walls and grow to be a little over a foot long.
Baby black racers don’t look like the adults though they still have the white chin. They are more mottled looking. These hatch from eggs in late August and can be found in fields, gardens or woodland areas. They are super fast.
Baby garter snakes are born live and can be seen in gardens, around ponds, stone walls and other places where they can feed on insects and worms. This little snake is of the maritime species, quite common here on the Cape. Note that it does not have the stripes often associated with garter snakes.
Check out this hyper little guy trying to get out of the bucket. If left unwatched it would have succeeded, too! All these snakes were caught by naturalists who knew what they were doing and how to handle them. They were shown to children and discussed and then let go.
Please leave baby snakes where you find them. They are difficult to feed and care for correctly and they belong in the wild.
If you’ve been out and about at all over the last few weeks you probably are well aware that turtles are on the move. Whether turtles live in the sea, the marsh, the pond or the woods, they all seek warm sand on land to lay their eggs.
Although sea turtles come here to feed they do not lay eggs on the Cape but we have plenty of other egg laying turtles. Only one of them lives in the marsh and that is the diamondback terrapin. These turtles are almost never seen on land, spending most of their time in bays, inlets in marshes and other such places. You are far more likely to see them when out kayaking in a marsh than walking along a trail at the beach.
I was out with a group of Sandy Neck Junior Rangers this past week and we went looking for turtle tracks. They are hard to see, both in the photo and in real life but once you know what to look for, they are easy to recognize. Note the little bit of drag in the middle….that is from the shell.
We then spotted the tiny turtle…
This was a baby diamondback terrapin that was recently hatched but from eggs laid last year, not this year.
We eventually found the tracks of other baby diamondback terrapins as well as another en route to the marsh. If you find baby turtles on the move at this time of year, please let them keep on walking. Don’t pick them up and “help” them by taking them to the water. Walking strengthens little legs so they will be able to swim when they get there. Also, baby box turtles should never be taken to water for they are land turtles and can’t swim! You should also be aware that it is illegal in the state of Massachusetts to take baby turtles or any wild turtles home to keep as pets.
This last photo gives you a good idea of how tiny that little turtle was–it is in a child’s hand! We respectfully put this little one back where it had been but not before all the kids got to peek at it up close. So keep your eyes open, it’s a turtle time of year out there!
If you follow or subscribe to my blog you may have been bombarded with calendar posts this afternoon due to my ineptitude while posting events on a calendar on my Upcoming Classes page….
Spam horrifies and annoys me and I apologize profusely if you were annoyed or inconvenienced. I have since dealt with problem and hopefully it will never happen again.
Wow, the last few months have just flown by me and I have been remiss about posting here. If you’re on Facebook, that is where I am every day with new pictures, latest sightings, etc. but I will try to be better about posting here for those of you are not Facebook sort of folks….
It’s hard to believe there’s still snow on the ground but it sure has been cold out there! There is even still snow at the beach…
and for those of you keeping track of the birds you see this year, this Iceland Gull at Craigville Beach is very accommodating and easy to see in the parking lot there…
Stay warm out there!
Please consider supporting me and my team as we raise funds for the Coastal Waterbird Program housed at the Long Pasture Sanctuary in Cummaquid. The event begins tonight at 6 p.m. and ends tomorrow at 6 p.m. but you can donate any time in the next week.
You can donate through my First Giving page online or send a check to Coastal Waterbirds (please note my name, Mary Richmond, in a note, not on the check) to Long Pasture Sanctuary, Box 235, Cummaquid MA 02637
And here’s a quick video of a common yellow throat I spotted at Long Pasture just this morning!