The Merganser

Hooded Merganser (male)
Lophodytes cucullatus
crayon, tusche
12-17-2014
about

These shy but active ducks stay near the dam in the winter. There's currently a group of two males and one female. As soon as I approach, they swim to the other side of the pool above the dam. They are often busy, diving below the surface hunting for small fish or crustaceans to eat. I like the idea that an animal can be described as "busy". This somehow cheers me up. What animal cheers you up?

Bonne journée!

ʞɔnp duck

Mallard & reflections
10-28-14
crayon

A Heron's Life

Great Blue Heron & Mallards
graphite
Aug. 14, 2014

The Great Blue Heron has been hiding most of the summer. I found it last weekend in the shallows downstream. This view is from the Pleasant Street Bridge.

The ducks seem to have no trouble finding the heron. I wonder what they think about each other. The heron has a completely different sort of existence than the dabbling ducks. Ducks scramble about eating aquatic plants and getting in each other's way. The heron stands still as a statue stalking daydreaming fish. And then, like lightening, he stabs the water and swallows the fish whole like Gollum in the Lord Of The Rings. And then the heron waits like a fat anaconda until another fish wanders nearby. The mallards meanwhile have paddled over to other riffles and eddies to snack on whatever floats their way.

Diving Duck

mallard feeding underwater
8/14/2014
charcoal

Moon & Miscellaney

Supermoon…almost
08-07-14
watercolor, lithographic tusche

More inkiness: mallards & geese
08-09-14

Big trout
08-09-14

Dabbling mallards
08-11-14
charcoal

Dabbling mallards near rocks
08-11-14
charcoal

Ducks

detail

Three mallards
9-18-13

low water + rocks = ducks
9-10-13

ducks in the rain 1
9-13-13

ducks in the rain 2
9-13-13

My Porto-pencil

Three Mallards
01-28-13
graphite

This drawing was made with my "Porto-pencil". It was given to me by Paula C. a friend from Porto, Portugal. This pencil is a tourist number. It's big and black with a kind of art-deco illustration of Porto's skyline wrapped around its barrel. It's big and fat and filled with lots of hard indifferent graphite. But it's from Paula and I know special drawings will come out of it.

From Paula's photos and blog posts, I imagine that it's always warm in Porto and moist sea breezes perpetually tangle my hair. The city — is it made of butter? — rises on the hills above the ocean and the harbor-side promenades. I'd like to visit Porto and Lisbon. Paula would show me the lighthouses.

But to draw with my Porto-pencil, in Massachusetts in the middle of winter, I have to hold it in my gloved hand and I hold it at the far end. The pencil's tip is far away herding the bits of my vision into a fidgety but recognizable drawing of ice and snow, ducks, the river's current and the tangled branches of bushes.

It's nice to think of my pen pal Paula here in my winter. We both love birds and the freight of symbols they carry so effortlessly. I imagine that the Porto-pencil is especially good at drawing birds. We'll see about that.

Hi Paula. Muito obrigado, gratissimo!

Ink Drawings

brush and ink. The wash is a mix of coffee and India ink.

These were great fun to do this morning. A small flock of mallards was feeding and minding their business in the river below the dam. They seemed so peaceful and dedicated to their own particular needs. They eat, preen, dabble and squabble and chase each other around. And they rest by tucking their heads under their wings and balancing on one leg. Can you do that?

Invisible!

Canada Geese preening themselves on top of the dam
07-10-12

07-11-12

note: as I started to draw this morning, a view of some ducks through one of the arches of the Pleasant Street Bridge, a small raccoon came down to the river's edge to see what was going on. Don't bother looking for him; I'm not that clever: He's not in this drawing. If he was, he'd be on that flat boulder just to the right of the arch. The raccoon only stayed a half a minute and then ambled back into the forest. I suspect he was up past his bedtime!

Imagine all the things that are not in a life drawing! All the stories and miniature dramas, the comings and goings, the alignments and realignments and the movement of the wind and shadows.

I'm always interested in that first moment when a thing or face is recognized and named. I can be looking directly at something and it simply isn't there …not until my noggin recognizes it. The same goes for leavings too I guess. When was that last moment I beheld someone dear… what did they look like? Better in my memory than in a photo. Life's a mystery.

Petit Dejeuner

Two mallards having a small meal
21 Nov. 2011
china marker on paper

There were more ducks in this group. I only drew two of them as they dabbled in the shallow water. I was sitting at a viewing platform at Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary and the wetland was full of activity. At one point, another male dropped out of the sky and joined the boisterous group. A pair of Canada geese kept their distance.

Low Water Opportunities

Low water in the river apparently means more animals can exploit the environment below the dam. There are rocks to rest upon and pools of water where fish linger. The hot weather has stimulated luxuriant plant growth which provides forage for the mallards. I even spotted a large brown water snake the other evening. It was cruising the rocks at the face of the dam looking, I presume, for small fish. I did see a few darting black fish shapes leaping up at the face of the cascading water. So did an observant Great Blue Heron that perched a few feet from the snake (who seemed unaware of its presence!). The heron seemed equally curious about the snake (who was focused on the fish). That would be quite a meal if he could manage it!

low water flowing over the dam. Three mallards dabble at the top of this sketch.

Here's that incredible water snake. He looked huge but was probably a meter long tip to tail.

I returned this morning (July 29, 2011) and was able to sketch a pair of juvenile Common Mergansers as they rested on a flat rock. Later, they hopped into the water and started foraging.