Ducks & Geese

Suddenly, the dam is swarming with fowl: mallards (and ducklings!), Canada geese all in a row, a peripatetic Great Blue Heron, sparrows that capture delicate flying bugs, grackles that stalk, herky-jerky in the mowed grass and swallows that soar above it all. It is glorious summer, canicule and all.
Be well!

there are seven ducklings in all. I saw them again this morning.

Here's Mother Mallard and her little ones.

The Canada Geese line up on top of the dam and perform an elaborate toilette. There appears to be a waiting list!

Dabbling!

It's August and new shallows and riffles have opened up downstream from the island. It seems like perfect habitat for the dabbling mallards. Here is what mallards do: preen, fight, dabble, sleep, work on their tans, and dabble some more. Some are very leisurely at their dabbling. Others are quite vigorous; it's like they're digging pernicious weeds out of hard ground.

Here's an old drawing showing geese on top of the dam.

It's a short drop.

Because the water level has been steadily dropping, riffles and chutes are opening up all over the place. The ducks and young ducklings line themselves up, several abreast, bills into the current. They then move like farmers' combines across the breadth of the small currents and dabble furiously at any bit of passing tasty things.
In this sketch I tried to capture the agitation of the water's surface and the position of the ducks.

One of the more interesting dabbling spots is up on the top of the dam. I wish I had a sketch for you; maybe I'll do one tomorrow. What's funny about it is that with the lazy flow of water, the ducks get quite bold (or careless) in their walking down the concrete face of the dam. All the while their bills are sifting the flowing water for something of nutritional value. Once in a while, they go too far and fall down. Sometimes they scramble (flapping as gracefully as they can) back to the top but other times they just wind up getting boiled in the white water at the foot of the dam. Then they waddle out of the spin cycle and start to preen again.

I think it's funny. We've always wondered what happens because geese and ducks are up there all the time.
The birds could probably care less!

Ten ducklings today!

colored pencil & watercolor

Well, they're hardly ducklings anymore! No parent in sight and they were all huddled together on these submerged granite blocks. I think this is the remains of the brood of twelve that I saw a few weeks ago. Two have left or gone to duck heaven.  After drawing this group for about 30 minutes, they hopped up one by one, and plopped into the water to dabble in front of the arches of the Pleasant Street Bridge. As I left they were below and into the flat, sparkling riffles below.

On another, mostly-unrelated note, I've been drawing (doodling) whimsical cars. Just for fun. I like taking a basic concept and running it through the art machine and seeing all the variations that I'm able to create until I just run out of gas. I like the thrill of discovery. Some of you may find it tedious and surely, we don't all need to know what goes into the sausage! So, proceed at your own risk and go here to see the big collection: "Les dessins d'automobiles".

And so on and so forth!

Bonne journée!

Low water

It's late-July and the water is very low in the Charles River. Here's a drawing in purple colored pencil that I made late last week. Near the rocks in the upper right at the face of the dam is a family of ducks: a mother and nine ducklings.

I sketched these very rapidly with ball point pen. The ducklings are in constant movement dabbling in the gentle swirling water. The mother is vigilant but relaxed.

We had a bit of rain yesterday but it has been rather dry this summer so it should be safe to raise a family of ducks at this small dam. There has been another duck family settling in; they have a dozen babies!

That's all for now