An unlikely visitor – a wayward cormorant

Sketching with a brush and watercolor paint directly onto the paper.  From my photo reference.  The cormorant was tired at this point, and bunched its neck up close to its body, huddling near the floor.

Last week a cormorant walked into our cabinet shop. It padded in with an air of determination, and headed for a dark enclosed area in the rear. Cormorants are water birds, and happy, healthy water birds do not like dry concrete and sawdust. Suspecting that the bird may be ill, we gently tried to herd it outside with a handy broom. It would NOT leave.

Naturally, I felt the need to grab the camera and take some photos for future reference. Cormorants have glossy brown feathers that follow the contours of their duck-like body, and a sinuous snake-like neck. They look very much like another water bird, the anhinga. Both are diving and fish-eating birds, but the cormorant has a hooked tip at the end of its long, slender bill, while the cormorant has a pointed tip.



A pencil sketch from my reference photo .

 After a phone call to the injured wildlife extension of our local Conservancy Nature Center, they recommended that we bring the bird to them for observation. Luckily, we had a large cardboard box, and we cut ventilation holes in the top for air flow. Well, even sick birds don’t want to be put into a large cardboard box! It had no energy for flight, but was an energetic walker and dodger.

The nature center had warned us to wear safety glasses or sunglasses when we handled it, and minutes later I found out those cormorants have VERY sharp bills, and was glad I was wearing my glasses. When I put the lid onto the box, my left hand wasn’t as nimble as my right and I now have two shallow slashes near the nail bed of my middle finger. Ouch!

I drove to the Conservancy without further mishap and dropped the cormorant off to more capable people. I called to check up on it the next day, and they told me that the poor bird was dehydrated and underweight, and that they were giving fluids and keeping it in the incubator for warmth. I think the poor bird was on its last legs when it came to us; they said it might be 24 to 48 hours before they knew if the bird would pull through. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

You can also visit my Flickr photostream to see other nature sketchbook images.

Florida Butterfly Orchid

A delicate and sweet-scented herald of summer, the Florida butterfly orchid is blooming now. A friend gave this particular orchid to me after it fell from her cypress tree, and every June it flowers prolifically, even though it now resides on a live oak tree. I took some time to draw it this weekend, both the blooms and the pseudobulbs.

Although today is the first day of summer, it seems like it has been here in Southwest Florida for ages. Our temperatures have been in the middle to high nineties (Fahrenheit) every day, with very little rain (in our area) to cool us off. Despite the high heat, humidity, and scarce rain, green things are growing and thriving and blooming.

I love this little orchid. The blooms are small but vibrantly colored and have a light sweet fragrance. The prominent white lip with its bright magenta-to-violet smudge serves as a landing platform for pollinators.

Although butterflies will visit the flowers, pollination is mainly performed by bees. It’s speculated that the common name comes from the similarity of the dancing flowers on their long stems to as cloud of small butterflies fluttering in the tree branches.

I sketched the orchid bulbs and leaves on site with my sepia Micron Pigma pen and added watercolor later, in the comfort of a mosquito-free environment! If you look at the spent flowers, you can see the swelling seed capsules forming. I sketched and painted the flower studies inside, so I could take a little longer and look at the flower structures from different angles.

The Florida butterfly orchid is one of our most common orchids. It grows on tree branches as an epiphyte, gathering its nutrients and moisture from the air. They’ve become more rare as people have collected them and their natural habitat of cypress and slash pine trees have fallen to development. Native orchids are now protected by law, and should never be collected from the wild.

If you’d like to see my drawings and blog entry from last year (6-28-10), please click here.

Teachers, students and parents!
Click here for a free PDF file of a Florida butterfly orchid that you can save and print.

And you can always visit my Flickr photostream to see all of my nature journal images.

Thank you for stopping by!

Raccoon

Raccoon at Freedom Park, under the boardwalk, from my photo reference.

Although raccoons tend to be nocturnal mammals, I see them occasionally in the late afternoon at Freedom Park foraging for food in the cypress wetland on the eastern side. I caught this one on my digital camera looking up at me just as it passed under the boardwalk.

Raccoons are extremely adaptable; originally native to the Americas, they range from Canada into Central America, but are found throughout the world. They like to live near wetland areas: rivers, streams, swamps, and marshes – but also adjust to urban life, sometimes causing problems when they interact with humans in their search for food by raiding garbage cans and gardens.

With such distinctive features as a black “bandit’s mask” across the eyes and a bushy, ringed tail, raccoons are easy to identify. Their somewhat ungainly-looking bodies are a contrast to the small and delicately shaped feet and hands. These hands are sensitive and used to explore, manipulate, and clean foods such as crayfish and nuts. Raccoons are omnivores and eat a wide variety of fish and amphibians, small mammals and birds (including eggs), berries, insects, worms, and seeds.

I’ve learned some interesting facts about raccoons in my explorations:

• Scientists can’t seem to agree on the reason why raccoons wash or douse their food in water before eating.

• They prefer environments with vertical support, so they like woodlands with easy to climb trees.

• Raccoons make an appearance in Native American mythologies – as having spirit powers or a as an intelligent trickster.

• Raccoon pelts were used as currency as late as the early 1900’s. They are still trapped and hunted for their fur and meat.

• According to Wikipedia, raccoon was a traditional dish on American farms.

• Raccoons are adept at learning and have a good memory.

• Besides large predators like bobcats and panthers, their worst enemies are humans and automobiles.

• They leave unique tracks – the larger hind feet eclipse the smaller and daintier front feet, which resemble human hands.

And there is so much more to the common raccoon! Start your own explorations by visiting these informative links:

University of Florida IFAS Extension
Wikipedia
National Geographic

Teachers, students, and parents:

Please click here for a free downloadable PDF coloring page of this raccoon.

You can also visit my Flickr photostream for more of my visual nature journal entries.

Buttonbush

A curiously flowered shrub, the buttonbush takes its name from the round button-like fruits. The flowers are described as looking like pincushions, puffballs, or ping-pong balls, and are about 1 to 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Buttonbush enjoys damp areas and thrives in swamps, marshes, and along water edges throughout most of the eastern United States. It ventures into the Midwest just past the Mississippi River and grows in selected moist pockets in Arizona and California.

The creamy white flower balls have a sweet scent and attract bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. The fruit ball is composed of small nutlets, which serve as a food source for ducks and other birds. The bushy growth provides cover for birds and other small animals. The leaves on this buttonbush are whorled in groups of three, but they also grow in opposite pairs. buttonbush is deciduous, which means that it drops its leaves in the fall or winter. The new growth on this shrub is tinged with red on the petioles (leaf stems) and the tips of the leaves.

Although considered inedible for humans and horses, deer are reported to enjoy the foliage and young twigs. Buttonbush leaves, bark, and roots had wide uses as a decoction, a gargle, and poultice and were used by Native Americans and European settlers to cure ailments from dysentery to toothache. However, the plant contains toxins that often had worse effects than the illness it treated, and eventually fell out of favor.
If you’d like to read more about buttonbush, please visit the following links:

Wikipedia
Floridata
Florida’s Nature

Teachers, students, and parents!
Please click here for a free downloadable PDF coloring page of a buttonbush.

You can also visit my Flickr photostream for more of my visual nature journal entries.

Thanks for visiting!