Category: Birds of North America

Clark’s Grebes

Posted in Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Clark's Grebes, Nature Photography, Nikon, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , , , 20 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Today I thought I share some images from my Spring Grebe excursion.   We met at 5:45am to get out on the water to see the sun rise over the mountains and get that great light.

We were so fortunate to have a lovely morning with a rosy glow, and the Grebes were up and feeding already as well.

The male Grebes impressed me by how hard they work to feed the family.  I’ll try to convey that with some images.

The male making a fish transfer to his mate and a hungry chick poking its head out in anticipation;

Clark's Grebe Pair making fish transfer

…but that little fish was a slippery one and she dropped it, fortunately, she was able to retrieve it quickly!

Clark Grebe Pair

Here a Clark’s Grebe male is just about to make the transfer;

Clark's Grebe Male making Fish Transfer to Female

Here’s a Clark’s Grebe male feeding a fish directly to a chick. That fish looks too big for that tiny bill!

Clark's Grebe Male Transferring Fish to Grebe Chick

With several mouths to feed the male does a whole lot of fishing!

He helps with swimming lessons, and even gives the female a break by allowing the chicks to swim from Mom’s back to his. Western Grebes:  Yes, it’s a butt shot. 🙂

Western Grebes

Seeing this was so exciting and so darn adorable!!

Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2015.5

Have a wonderful week-end Everyone!

More to come…

 

Insects of Point Reyes National Seashore

Posted in Beetles, Birds, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Butterflies, Insects, Photography, USA National ParksTagged , , , , , , , , , , 29 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I had pretty good luck spotting insects while hiking in Point Reyes National Seashore last week-end.  I saw Butterflies, Beetles, and Grubs. Here’s a sampler. 🙂

I’m pretty sure this is a Skipper, but I can’t find anything that looks exactly like it in my books, or online so, don’t know what it is.  I found it in Point Reyes National Seashore last week-end; July 9,2016.  Anyone know what it is and what it is called?

Unknown Skipper or Butterfly?

Other insects I found while exploring different areas of the park were:

A ladybug, one of several I saw…

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

a green and black beetle called a Spotted Cucumber Beetle,

Spotted Cucumber Beetle

who was pretty hungry,

Spotted Cumcumber Bettle

…a Common Buckeye Butterfly

Common Buckeye Butterfly

…and a grub or grasshopper served a la carte to a White Crown Sparrow that is banded. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a banded sparrow.

Banded White Crown Sparrow

Nikon Df w/28-105mm lens and Delkin Digital Film, and  Lumix FZ200 w/ Lexar Digital Film- Hand-held

More to come…

 

Lazuli Bunting Watercolor

Posted in #WaterColorMonth, Art, Birds, Birds of North America, Draw a Bird Day, Nature, Photography, Watercolor, Watercolor PaintingTagged , , , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Here we are already on July 8th! Which means it’s Draw-a-Bird Day over on CreateArtEveryday, and it’s also #WorldWatercolorMonth created by Charlie O’Shields over at doodlewash.com. 

Yesterday afternoon I felt inspired to paint a Lazuli Bunting I photographed back in May 2014. I used a Pentel Graphic Gear 0.7 to lightly sketch the beak, and snag it’s perched on, but kept the rest the painting loose.  I’m pleasantly surprised how well it came out for not trying to sketch the whole bird.

The Lazuli Bunting is a Spring/Breeding visitor in my region of Northern California.  I was very excited to see it him and add him to my “life list” back in the Spring of 2014.

Lazuli Bunting in Watercolor

The image I used as my reference is here.P52 18 of 52 Lazuli Bunting-1st yr Male

Paint, Paper, Brush:

Sennelier L’Aquarelle in Cinereous Blue, French Vermillion, Bright Red, Burnt Umber, Ivory Black, Naples Yellow Deep, Warm Sepia, Hooker’s green, Phthalo Green Light.

I painted this in my Strathmore Watercolor Art Journal 400 Series 8.5″ X 5.5″ 140lb paper.

Brush:  Di Vinci Artissimo Rd #1

I’m posting this on both Creatarteveryday’s Draw a Bird Day, and #WorldWatercolormonth.  If you have a moment please head over and check out the amazing work being done by artists all over the world.

More to come…

 

Killdeer v3.0

Posted in Bird Art, Birds, Birds of North America, Pen & Wash Watercolor, Photography, Watercolor, Watercolor PaintingTagged , , , , , , , , , 13 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

So, the other day when I posted my Draw-a-Bird Killdeer I meant to post it with my second painting, but had one glass of vin too many me thinks because, I actually posted the first Killdeer line and wash I tried.  I’m so blond!

I wasn’t totally happy with version 2  though it was better than the first drawing and painting, so I quickly got started on a version 3 which I finished yesterday afternoon.

Killdeer in Watercolor

My notes in the right corner are about the tools I used to make this line and wash.

Micron 0.3 pen, Sennelier watercolor paints, Brushes: 0/0 rigger by Simmons, #6 rd Escoda Reserva, and #12 rd Mimik Kolinsky. Painted in a Strathmore  400 series  8.5″X 5.5″ Watercolor Journal.

It’s been fun and exciting seeing my progress with each drawing and wash. I am happy with the way version 3 came out.

version 2

Killdeer V2

and the first attempt.

Killdeer in Watercolor

With each drawing I got the shape, and markings a bit better, and the placement on the page better as well. My next step is to draw and paint it on a bigger sheet of Arches watercolor paper.  I’m going to begin that today or tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

Images taken with a Panasonic Lumix FZ200| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2015

More to come…

Clark’s Grebes

Posted in Bird Photography, birding, Birds of North America, California, Clark's Grebes, Clear Lake CA, Grebes, Nature Photography, Northern California, Northern California Birds, PhotographyTagged , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

I spent the week-end with old friends Theresa, Dali, and Alex birding up in Clear Lake. We went to see Grebes, we hoped dancing on the water.

We booked a boat with the same tour group we used last year Eyes of the Wild with Faith as our Captain. You can read that post here.

We booked early and Faith kept us abreast of the Grebe situation on the lake on and off up until our booking day. Last week she sent me a text message saying that courting had really slowed down, but she had a surprise. Babies were early and she’d found several pair of Grebes with babies! Did we still want to come up?

Did we still want to come up? OF COURSE WE DID!  We’d go to see the chicks alone! We had hoped to get up there again last summer to see Grebe chicks, but there was a huge fire, the drought, add to that predators, well, it all added up to a low number of Grebes and not too many babies so, we didn’t go back up last year. We went this time!

Here’s my favorite image today of the babies and their parents.

Grebe Family

Dad had brought the fish, made a perfect transfer of it to Mom, and the chicks were out and exposed from their Mom’s wings peeping their heads off to get that fish!  The morning light was lovely, and I managed to keep the shot in focus and made before the boat moved up or down with a swell!

This was such an exciting, wonderful,  beautiful sight to see!

We also saw a few dances. We saw Osprey pairs with chicks, and a really pretty sunset among the most notable things we saw this past week-end.

I came home with 1700 images to cull. I’ve made my first pass and deleted about 400 already.  I’ll try to break up the posts so I don’t bore you to death with images of Grebes all the time. 🙂

Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| SunDisk Digital Film|

More to come…

 

 

 

 

California Thrasher II

Posted in Bird Photography, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Nature, Nature Photography, Photography, Santa Clara CountyTagged , , , , , , 30 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Back in March while birding and photographing flowers in Santa Cruz, CA I was thrilled to hear and see a California Thrasher for a minute…long enough to get a few images, before I spooked it trying to get a little bit closer to it.  You can see that post here.

I’ve been wishing to see one again, and be closer to it. Well, on Sunday I got my wish while birding down in the southern end of Santa Clara Valley.

California Thrasher

He was singing his little heart out!

California Thrasher

He sang for 10 minutes.  Then he stopped, gave himself a real good shake…

California Thrasher

…took a breath, and began singing again!

California Thrasher

Two little Bushtits flew into the bush beside him and began talking to him,

Bushtits

so he turned around to sing to them.

California Thrasher

There were a few more notes sung by the Bushtits to the Thrasher then they flew off. It happened so fast I was only able to get 3 shots of the Bushtits.  The image isn’t great. My lens kept wanting to focus on the branches in front of the bird rather than the little bird.

Then the Thrasher flew north. What a treat that was to hear him singing for so long.  It was the highlight of my morning.

The California Thrasher is found in California and Baja California.

I found some  California Thrasher Song sound files over on allaboutbirds.com that you can listen to here.

Nikon D700| Nikkor 200-500mm| Lexar Professional Digital Film| PS CC 2015

More to come…

 

Tribute Day May 14, 2016

Posted in Birds, Birds in the Wild, Birds of North America, Global Big Day, Macro Photography, National Train Day, Nikon, Photography, TrainsTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 26 Comments

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Today is National Train Day in the States, and it’s also Global Big Day 2016 in the Birding World.  I thought I’d honor both here with a short post.

Back in 2012 myself and two friends Dali, and Phil were looking for a particular waterfall called Phantom Fall in Butte county. We hiked through a woodland forest, along railroad tracks, crossed creeks, and climbed grassy hills looking for it. While on a grassy hill taking a break I heard the rumble of a train, and the low train’s whistle and turned to find the train.

I waited for it to get around the curve hoping it was a long enough train to go around the whole curve. It was a wee bit short. 🙂 Still neat to see, and hear though.

We hiked, and drove a lot of miles that day looking for that elusive waterfall, but didn’t find it. Dali and I found it a year or so later, but I’m saving that story. Not enough time has passed yet. I need to be older and the tale a bit more aged before it comes out in public.

Amtrak train

Here’s a fun macro image I made of a toy Bachman’s Engine some of you may remember from a post I made last year.  This is from a train set we used to set up around the Christmas tree when my kids were little.

Toy train

To honor Global Big Day and my love of birds here’s an image of a Western Wood Peewee.

I took this image while looking for the Gray Flycatcher posted here  The Western Wood Peewee is a “lifer” for me! That was an exciting day of Birding with 2 “life” birds added to my list.

Western Wood Peewee

I hope you all have a wonderful week-end!

Nikon D700, & Nikon Df| Nikkor 70-300mm VR, 200-500mm VR, and LensBaby

More to come…