For Klaus

Here is a small compendium of drawings of geese (and a few other birds). I've drawn quite a few more over the years.

I hope you like them.

a sleeping swan

mallard and ducklings

charcoal

not ink (colored pencil)

sepia ink

geese and one swan

Inky Geese

Someone requested that I do more ink drawings of geese.

So I did: July 15th, 2014

Happy to oblige!

Bonne journée!

Book of Geese

An illustration student gave me a small sketchbook this Spring. I decided to dedicate it to several days of observations of geese.

Thanks to Julia Walters of the Art Institute of Boston-Lesley University. Julia got in touch with me several years ago after I'd shown my sketchbooks at the college. Over coffee I reviewed her portfolio which was full of heartfelt and astute designs and observations of Nature. She's currently exploring surface design and the cover of the sketchbook features a small silkscreen print of some flowers and leaves. I wish her the best as she embarks on her career!

July Geese

July 6, 2014
charcoal

July 6, 2014
charcoal

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

After the Royal Wedding

Emergent fiddleheads (4/29/11)

Broadmoor Sanctuary 4/29/11

After Prince William and Kate Middleton's beautiful ceremony this morning, I went to Broadmoor Audubon Sanctuary to see what natural spectacle might be in the offing. The weather was fabulous: clear skies, early morning raking sunlight, not hot and just a hint of cool.

Ferns are emerging in the forest now and the fiddle heads grow very quickly. I captured several clumps of them in the drawing above. While drawing this (about 45 minutes) I saw a water snake glide past and a small turtle sunning on an exposed "tuffet" out in the water. Grackles had a spiraling aerial combat overhead and geese filled the air with their cacophony. The snake returned and retraced its route back to the other corner of the shore.

I did a second drawing at the end of the boardwalk (in purple pencil). I liked the reflections and the new plants, pencil-thin, arrowing up out of the still water. Geese zoomed overhead in both directions where nuptial parties were happening in the marsh. At one point I was surprised by a Merganser rocketing low over the water from one end and over the bridge where I was stationed.

Slowly, the process gets underway: The process of getting to know this place.

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!

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

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.

Geese

Not much more to say except that geese are beautiful.