In Clover

The Pleasant Street Bridge the other morning…

A lone grackle walking through the clover
colored pencil
July 3, 2014

grackle (detail)

clover, grass (detail)

two mallards seen through the fence rails (detail)

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!

Midsummer

Bastille Day 2013

The heat wave continues and it's been hard to get motivated to get out and sketch. But then a few days go by and I feel like I've lost touch with the passage of the season. It's summer, with a vengeance.

The river is at seasonably low water levels. The floods are over for the time being. Rocks are visible and rapids and yesterday I saw a young family of mallards dabbling near the island as in seasons past. It was nice and reminded me of old times.

Mallard and ducklings
07-18-13
colored pencil

As I sat on the park bench and drew this small family, I was surprised by a young raccoon who approached me from the bushes near the river. He seemed to have just remembered the not-quite-licked-clean food container that someone had left by the bench the day before. We chatted and the masked animal scuttled off bewildered no doubt.

The sun effects us all. A few days before this encounter, as I was walking to the dam after dinner I spied (or nearly tripped over!) a large family of skunks. The nine kits were sniffing and jostling about in some bushes very close the road. They tumbled one over the other and made low chortling trills. Their mother was nervously waiting and scolding them from the foundation plantings of a house. I warned the oncoming traffic of the skunk peril and the drivers slowed down and smiled. I even tossed a few pebbles and sticks to warn the exuberant babies back in the direction of Mom and safety.  That must have been Sunday, Bastille Day and the moon floating high above the park next to the river.

The herons are hunting again now that the water level is lower.

A view of the South Natick Dam
07-11-13
chalk

Another view of the dam from about the same spot. You can see the rocks emerging from the shallows below the dam.
07-18-13

The canicule will break briefly this weekend. That may bring some thunderstorms. I'll be traveling though. I hope it doesn't seriously alter my plans. And I hope you have a peaceful and relaxing weekend too.

Rive gauche, rive droit

The Pleasant Street bridge from the Left Bank.
June 27, 2013

The Pleasant Street bridge from the Right Bank.
June 29, 2013

Water World

June 2, 2013

At the head of the island which is just below the dam, there is a small quiet space, a pool where the reflections of the grasses settle and shimmer. But the river races along on either side as if the right and left banks worry that they will be separated forever. Where they join at the downstream end of the island, you may spot mallards resting and dabbling in the calm eddies.
Does water have a memory? Eventually, the rivers and seas are the depositories of all our innocent and murderous launderings. They are the library and witness to the wine spilled, the blood dabbed from a child's knee, and the runoff of our too-green lawns, the hair and soap and waste and rainbow flecks from the sky. Does it also contain the frozen footprints that the ducks left in the ice last winter? Can it contain, like a paper envelope, my clandestine cat-like thoughts and ship them around the wet world? And that object, bobbing down the river… is that a letter for me? From, you? Marvelous!

I was so busy

At the dam this morning: I was so busy noticing the Little Green Heron far below me that I failed to see the Great Blue Heron close by. The Little Green Heron is rarely seen here and is very shy. I saw it a few days ago so I hope it will stay a while. Maybe I'll be able to draw its portrait.

The heron was right there in the heavy flow of new rain from the other night's showers. I saw the heron catch a scaly breakfast before he decided the dam wasn't private enough. I spent the rest of the hour drawing the ripening Black Walnuts overhead and the Autumn light filling up this room, this space between the dam and the bridge. It's very lovely. I hope you get out today and experience the real world too.

using an ink wash: a geometric simplification of the dam

directly overhead: black walnut fruits

Water Over the Dam

South Natick dam
charcoal
© Rob Dunlavey 2012

I think it's been a one of the drier summers but when I look back through my drawings from previous seasons, I see plenty of views of the bare stones and gravel in the river below the dam.  At this time of year, the low water allows ducks free access to all that flowing water affords: mobility and lots of forage to sample in the swirling currents. They busily dabble in all places and attitudes. I've seen them wantonly follow their beaks as they inch down the dam's face surveying the passing water. At a certain point, gravity gets their attention and they scuttle upward or are forced to abort and fly away.

They are always earnest and good natured about these small predicaments. If only me and my kind could show such equanimity in the face of such inevitable slights! It's funny, ducks get aggressive and nip at each other's tails and napes but they quickly settle their feathers and get on with the business at hand. The emotional lives of animals seems so much less-stressful than humans. But this is a wistful digression!

Mallards at the algae salad bar
charcoal, ink
© Rob Dunlavey 2012

Rocks below the dam
charcoal, ink wash
© Rob Dunlavey 2012

Sandpiper
charcoal, ink, ink wash
© Rob Dunlavey 2012

This sandpiper has set up housekeeping at the dam in the last few weeks. It is fun to watch. He bobs and dips his tail and is in near-constant motion prospecting for little bugs to dine on. Don't you love his bright eye?

Ink Drawings

08-01-12
These were drawn with sienna ink and conté pencil

detail

detail

It's been very humid lately and that makes it problematic to draw with pencil. The paper gets soft and you have to bear down more with the pencil. And, I'm getting a little bored with the pencils anyway… so I've been using ink in my en plein-air drawing. And this burnt sienna ink gives the drawing an old fashioned look. So that's kind of fun too. How interesting!

There's a reason for everything, even when there's no reason or when someone is being unreasonable!

Midsummer Waterfowl

Canada Geese
07-16-11
colored pencil

Despite yesterday's torrential downpours, the water level in the river is dropping. This creates more feeding opportunities for mallards and geese. Fish swim about in the pools forming in the rocky shallows below the dam but no herons have been hunting there lately.  These low levels seem normal for this time of year. These drawings were done in the last few days. It really feels like summer: hot and humid!

Canada Geese: 3 - Mallards: 2
07-17-11
colored pencil

Mallard feeding on top of the dam
07-18-11
colored pencil

Female mallard and two young
07-18-11
colored pencil

Perspective

Several days of rain have added to the water budget in my neighborhood (unlike the country's economic budget, Nature's is logical). The river is carrying a big load of water today which is a stark contrast to the usual lazy August scene. In low water, ducks, geese and herons and the two young mergansers rest, fish and dabble in pools and riffles. Now they've all been chased to calmer waters by the torrent. I love the rush of the water but I miss the birds.

However, there are plenty of frogs above the dam and the water is less murky. Of course, I do not actually see the frogs; I just see a swish and a swirl and a suggestion of their presence. I wonder if they appreciate the blowsy yet elegant flowering mallows and other late summer plants growing along the stone wall above the dependable duckweed that obscures their periscopic goggle-eyes…

I guess it's all a matter of one's perspective.

Mallow, Hemlock?, a unidentified grass and Cat tail (Typhus latifolia) growing in the water above the dam
© 2011 Rob Dunlavey 8/11/11, colored pencil 

High water rushes over the dam obscuring  the pools and rocks where fish and herons hunt
© 2011 Rob Dunlavey 8/11/11, crayon

Great Blue Heron

A truly magnificent Great Blue Heron hunting at the face of the dam

I saw this beautiful bird at the dam yesterday after biking home from Needham. The world was very shiny. The sun was glorious. There were Constable clouds gliding this way and that in the sky. A few families were having picnics in the park. The water was rushing over the dam and creating a wonderful soothing din. And there was this pristine, well-coifed heron standing up to the torrent seeking its lunch.  Just gorgeous like a stately supermodel. The brilliant noonday sun casting his oval shadow on the rushing foam below.

Try to get outside people. It's officially Summer this week!

The Fish Ladder

a view of the dam with the fish ladder

I go away for a few days, and it rains like crazy. The river gets filled up and is its merry gushing self again. No ducks dabbling at the top of the dam now; the current is too strong. There are a few upriver where it's a bit safer. Only the sturdy geese seem to be able to relax at the top of the cascade.

This is a view above the dam drawn in the late afternoon. A Little Green Heron is perched on the wall looking for frogs to eat. It's a weird little bird. Comical: his crest folds up and down depending on I-don't-know-what!

The top drawing shows a fish ladder. It's a stair-step affair that allows fish that are so inclined to swim up the river to reach their favorite spawning places. I've never seen a fish leap up there like they do by the dozen in National Geographic.

I met one old-timer a few weeks ago who said that dare-devils would swim inside the rooster tail rapids and sit and enjoy being surrounded by the rushing water. He also informed me that there apparently used to be a bathing beach with lifeguards at this park… back when there were taverns in South Natick. Now we all drink nice wine on our decks and gossip about the neighbors with subdued voices. I'll take it!

To summer then! Salut! School begins later this week :-(

Observations

There is still one family of ducks that has stayed near the island below the dam. I guess it's reasonable to assume that the small island offers enough protection from predators (Which: turtles? large fish?). The proof is in the pudding: this mother and her brood of nine ducklings continue to explore and dabble in the pools and riffles of the river. A few weeks ago I studied a family with a dozen young but I haven't seen them since they went downstream below the arched bridge.

This group surprised me actually. I had become engrossed in drawing a heron and was alone with my thoughts when the duck family splashed into view. If you just sit still for a while and mind your business, you never know what you might be privileged to see.

The heron was graceful and comical. Without any regard for me, it gingerly stalked from rock to rock, at times carefully feeling the bottom of the riverbed. It positioned itself before a little "chute" of moving water and was soon eying the flow for fishy morsels. In quick succession, two small fish were caught and swallowed whole. These, of course quickly followed by a drink of water to wash it down (I wonder how long the fish live as they slide down that long heron throat… at times like this I'm glad I'm not a fish!). Eventually, he caught a larger fish and I observed the eating process again. I'll spare you the details but it does seem more difficult than actually catching the fish!

Here's a larger view of my heron sketch.

The view downstream

I'm always here at the park by the dam early in the day. And this day the sun was glaring off the water as it flowed among the rocks in the now-shallow river. What's happening? Just a few months ago the water was as high as the arches of the old bridge!

July 2, 2010: Canada geese (colored pencil)

I don't think that the geese mind the low water flow of summer. It makes it easier for them to stand on top of the dam and tend to their plumage that always seems to need a little fixing.

Every once in a while, you see some careless goose or duck absent-mindedly get too close to the edge and they suddenly have to scramble back up or get airborne as the water sweeps them over the edge. We use to feed them and purposefully try to lure them to the edge: just to see what would happen. There were usually hungry ducks stationed downstream who benefited from our silly experiments.

It's early July. It's the middle of summer. The sun has stood still and now the days start their march back to the winter solstice; the days are getting shorter and canicules will come and go and eventually, the truly sweet days of summer will be here. Those late August days with low sun and cool nights. Can the bittersweet glories of September and la rentrée be far off? Get your seatbelts ready but don't latch them yet! The living is easy and life seems forgiving and green.