Highland Park Backyard Birds

It’s the time of year when people post cumulative posts. You know, usually the ones that say Favorites of 2014 or Best Posts of the Last Year or that sort of thing. I decided to post Highland Park backyard birds that I have seen since I started bird watching. Let’s see – I first bought a bird feeder in February 2010; I did find some of my bird photos from 2009. The birds below are listed in alphabetical order – enjoy.

Blue Jay

Blue jays visit every now and then. When they do come, they are sure to make noise and hog the bird feeder.

Cardinal

I took this photo about two weeks ago – cardinals love to visit my backyard when I fill my feeder with black oil sunflower seeds. I see the red in my backyard, and it warms my heart.

Cardinal – Female

Mrs. Cardinal is usually nearby when I spot Mr. Cardinal (above) first. She indeed was there at the same time as the photo taken above.

Catbird

I seem to get catbird visitors in summer months. Pleasant birds: I enjoy the “singing.”

Chickadee

I don’t often see a chickadee – the one above is from February 2012. But they are handsome birds – so I love seeing one!

Downy Woodpecker

I am more likely to hear a woodpecker than see one. The one above was sighted in February 2014.

Finch

This rare beauty (rare for my backyard) was sighted in December 2013. Maybe if I am more diligent this winter with my camera and my feeder, I will find more.

Goldfinch

If you look very carefully, I believe that’s a goldfinch hidden in my echinacea. I saw a few goldfinch this past summer on other echinacea in my neighborhood. I suppose it’s the seeds they are after.

Grackle

I only had the chance to photograph grackle once my backyard. Turns out I had also photographed a grackle way back in 2008 while visiting Ein Gedi in Israel.

Mourning Dove

Mourning doves are birds I see a few times a year in my backyard.

Robin

When I looked up “robin” in my photo collection, I had quite a few choices. We do have robins as fairly frequent visitors in our area.

Sparrow

Sparrows are by far the most common bird in my backyard. I believe most of the ones that I see are house sparrows. I should study the different types of sparrows so I can appreciate them a little more. These three beauties were hanging out together in my backyard tree last week.

Starling

The few times I’ve seen starlings it’s been in a swarm like the one above. I still remember Michelle calling them “snarling starlings.”

Tufted Titmouse

I saw this tufted titmouse in my backyard last week. Tufted titmice aren’t frequent visitors, but when I do see them, they seem to pose and look at the camera. I find them quite cute.

Turkey Vulture

What fun, a swooping wide-winged bird in one’s own backyard. Here is the turkey vulture that visited this past October.

If you want to see a full list of Highland Park birds, and not just the ones I’ve seen and not just Highland Park backyard birds go to Highland Park, New Jersey: Bird Sightings. We have been putting those online since 2001.

For more Nature Notes:

Textiles Pattern Watercolor Exercise

A continuation of my posts of watercolor exercises from One Watercolor a Day, here is a watercolor inspired by American Arts and Crafts patterns. Quick summary of the textiles pattern watercolor exercise (the book has more details and suggestions): “Choose a few elements of a textile print. Create small thumbnails, mixing up elements to come up with something new. ”

I enjoyed this exercise, though it did take a fair amount of thinking and time. Copying great art works is always a valuable exercise in general: one sees more carefully when one has to draw, paint or design a copy or similar image. I went to the library and took out some books. The first batch had Tiffany glass, but the exercise said textiles, so I went to the library again. This time I actually did find a book called American Arts and Crafts Textiles (other suggestions were Japanese or Peruvian textile inspirations, for example).

Here is the one of the six above that I liked best, mostly because it made best use of the medium of watercolor (note the background):

The design is part of a 1911 Richardson Silk Company pillow kit.

When you think of textiles and patterns, what comes to mind? Have you ever seen Arts and Crafts designs and found them inspiring?

Chanukah Pattern Watercolor

Finally, I have a little more time for watercolor painting. This is exercise 24 in One Watercolor a Day: Playing with Patterns – “Paint an element in one color and its different values…Create a square, then tile it…do a simple repeat.”

I created the initial illustration in Illustrator. Then I flipped the pattern both vertically and horizontally, so you have four versions of the tile. Next I printed the graphic on watercolor paper. I mixed various shades and tints of purple watercolor on my palette. I painted using thin watercolor brushes. Once the painting was dry, I scanned it back into my computer and cropped it with Photoshop.

For fun, using Photoshop, I decided to add a little more color (changed a bit of the purple to pale blue). I also added something that looks like a watercolor effect. It might be fun to reprint my Chanukah Pattern Watercolor in black and white and then paint it in multitude of colors. Or perhaps just a palette of blue, red and yellow. Both look a little messy to me, but they are just exercises.

What do you see in the pattern?

Flat Design: Armchair

What do you see in the above illustration? Does this look like a flat design armchair? (I looked up armchair – it is truly one word). Does it remind you of any particular profession? What does it evoke?

I have been redoing my website, the main part of my site in which I sell my web services such as WordPress training and small business web development. I decided a little illustration would be nice for my new Services page. Of course, the illustration itself is the hard part … I already fussed a lot over the illustration for the home page.

So one idea is to have little balloons or circles with flat design illustrations that represent some of the businesses or organizations for which I do websites. Maybe one might look like this:

Or like this:

I may just toss the circles all together. Meanwhile, I need to come up with a few more flat icons / illustrations to put together in one illustration. Ideas: pen and ink, camera, piles of books, light source from a lamp …

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been fussing over today (in between helping various clients with various issues). The main question for you is: Does the arm chair illustration remind you of any particular profession? Or can you think of any professions I might illustrate with a simple flat design of some sort?

Imagination Landscape Watercolor

I am quite pleased with this watercolor. It reminds me a bit of a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci of a copse of birches. And that drawing I remembered in my subconscious mind from years ago from a book called The Art of Drawing by Bernard Chaet. The influence is the composition – note the placement of the birch copse. There is plenty of so-called “white space” on the drawing. One doesn’t have to stick the subject front and center with little room on the edges.

Do you have any artists, drawings or paintings, authors or books who enter your subconscious while you are creating?