Birdtober 2023 - Days 1-7

I mentioned that I was going to take on a few challenges for the month of October.  I decided to use a small watercolor sketchbook that I had in my stash.  Taped off the edges so the creative space is just a bit over 3" square.  I'm using watercolor pencils and decided to concentrate mostly on the birds and not so much on the backgrounds at this point.  I added a link to each picture that will provide more information on each bird for you.  These birds are from all around the world, some of them I've never heard of before.  The hostess did say that she took suggestions from her followers this time and I can see that there are some pretty choices she made.

Day 1 - Blue-Winged Pitta

(for bird info click here)

Day 2 - Cuban Trogon

(for bird info click here)

Day 3 - Eastern Rosella

(for bird info click here)

Day 4 - Superb Fruit Dove

(for bird info click here)

Day 5 - Common Tailorbird

(for bird info click here)

Day 6 - Albatross

(for bird info click here)

Day 7 - Bearded Reedling

(for bird info click here)

I'm using a combination of Derwent Inktense and General's watercolor pencils.  Though my Derwent set has 72 color choices, I still struggle with finding the right light neutral colors that are not in either set.  The buffs and beiges, etc. don't exist as pencils in my sets so I have to rely on the amount of water that I'm using to try to achieve them with the darker neutrals available to me.  That's why I was happy to see that the list contained some very colorful birds among the neutrals.

As I take the picture with my iphone when I'm done, I feel relieved when the bird identifier feature kicks in and identifies what I've drawn as the bird it's supposed to be.  It's a good feeling to know that it's recognizable.  A little frustrating when it doesn't recognize it as a bird at all though (the dove in this instance comes up as "an artwork").  

On our home bird front - I was surprised to see that the hummingbird is still here visiting the feeder.  We had a cold front come through this weekend and the temp dipped below 40 the other night and the days are comfortably cool (but no frost yet).  Someone local said to keep the feeder out until at least the 15th which we'll do.  When we take it in though, this one is going in the trash - one of the perches has broken off, and the plastic parts are really faded and brittle from being in the sun the last couple summers.  Time for a new one.  

The bluebirds have been around checking out the suet cake periodically and we can certainly hear them singing in the trees.  I know HWNSNBP will start putting out the dried mealworms soon for them.  He does put out suet cakes year round which all the birds frequent.  

Speaking of suet cakes.  HWNSNBP found a dead blue jay below ours last week.  We've had a couple of dead blue jays in the yard this summer and after he disposed of the last one I read that I should have been contacting someone about them as they are very susceptible to West Nile Virus and they're interested in knowing if that would be in our area.   I don't think they were sick though.  I noticed this summer that we have some very smart blue jays - and that maybe they are too smart for their own good.  I have an app on my phone that identifies bird songs/calls (Merlin) and use it to find out what birds I'm hearing in and around our property.  I know that blue jays have several different calls that they make to one another, but I had to do some further investigating when the app identified the blue jay as a hawk.  It seems blue jays will mimic hawks either to warn their blue jay buddies that there are hawks in the area, or to trick other birds into thinking that there are hawks in the area thus, keeping the competition away from a food source.  We do have hawks in the area so I'm wondering if they took care of that blue jay that was mimicking them for keeping their food source away.  Well, at least I now know what to do if we find another one.

I'll be back to post my first seven days of Inktober tangles soon.