§ I'm Feeling a Bit Foxy!! Springtime Rituals in the Animal Kingdom, and More

Some time ago, I posted that I started on another pencil sketch while waiting for Bud to get out of bed. I've been a bit busy on a couple of projects, and those projects, along with birding in the mornings,  have kept me away from my sketch pad.  This most recent one has been lying around; unfinished for quite a while.   In order to get it off my computer desk, I took the time to complete it yesterday!! For this sketch, I used my last sheet from the sketch pad...went to Hobby Lobby on the way home from the islands and bought a new tablet and a new sketch #5 pencil. I'm all set to draw when I get an urge!! For now, tho, this one'll go into my portfolio and be out of the way...



Here is the finished sketch.  Of a Fox...



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This week, I pulled off from our bookshelves an older book that I had read when we lived in Tucson, back in the 90s. I mentioned reading this book on my bird photography blog [published at noon today] because it pertains a bit to what I felt while watching two terns in their mating ritual. I hafta ask you, do you think that animals are 'dumb' when it comes to comparing them to us humans? I've never thought that. In more ways than one, I personally think they're smarter than us!  Reading this book, I remember, often brought tears to my eyes. The animals' emotions. Fear. Surprise. Anger...etc. etc. etc. I also remember reading about birds' antics when mating and choosing a mate. Do they feel love? Do animals feel remorse when a parent or sibling is injured or killed? Do they cry? Well, let me tell you...this book is a tell all of research and lack thereof on wild animal [and domesticated] emotions! For instance, here are a couple of excerpts:

1- "When I see a pair of parrots tenderly and patiently preening each other, my first thought is not that they are doing this to help the survival of their genes, This is a misleading manner of speaking"....Instead de Waal views the birds expressing love and expectations or...'an exclusive bond'".

2- "A game warden, doing elephant control work saw three female elephants and a half-grown male in tall grass. Since his job was to keep the population down, he shot the females ---and slightly wounded the young male. To his dismay, he suddenly saw two elephant calves hidden in the grass. The injured calf, instead of fleeing, the orphaned calves pressed themselves against the male and supported him to lead him away from the danger..."

This book is a must for all animal lovers, nature lovers, or those that are curious about animal emotions and behaviors. It may be a bit difficult to find in print at your library since it's over 20 years since it was first published. But, trust me, it's worth the effort to find it and read it. You won't want to put it down, and you won't want to resell it or trade it in.   And I'm sure you'll look at all creatures a lot differently knowing they ache and feel sadness, hunger, pain, happiness, regret, maybe even embarrassment.   It's a keeper. Very poignant and VERY educational.

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Then, moving on & speaking of emotions and feelings....these, for the last couple of weeks, have been EVERYWHERE in town!!  They're harmless, but a nuisance.  They're flying in your face [don't smile or open your mouth to breathe].  They're flying around in vegetation.  They're clinging to fences.  Stop the car, and your hood is soon black!  Not to mention the grill work on the hood...OR your windshield smeared with bug splatter.  Luckily, for us humans anyway, the flying pests only survive a couple of weeks....they die off.  Their main purpose is to breed.  An interesting fact or two:  also known as the honeymoon fly or double-headed bug. During and after mating, adult pairs remain coupled, even in flight, for up to several days.  source: wikipedia

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And, coming back to books...I did NOT LIKE the one book I started to read a week or two ago, Assassin's Accomplice.. I couldn't get past the first few chapters. The author was skipping around so much, it became difficult to decipher just when and where everything was taking place. It would have been much better had she kept her thoughts in chronological order! For instance she was talking about Mary Surratt and her husband, then she'd skip to Lincoln being assainated...only to go back to the times of marriage BEFORE Booth and the killing of the president. Over and over she did that. If only...oh well, it was worth a try. It could've been an excellent history. I can only give it ONE star of 5. Five being a keeper. And for the fact of jumping around different years and going back to a previous time...I just shut the book and said "We can trade this book in!"

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Like something from the cable's SYFY channel, this is what you call a process of an extreme make over! Well, kinda sorta. Soon, after breeding season concludes, all birds molt. This cardinal is definitely molting!! Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! Or Beauty and the Beast...From the stunning crimson red and full colors, to molting and growing new pretty feathers each season, this is quite a stark transformation from one phase to another. By winter, the new feathers will have grown out and soon to begin another breeding season in Spring, enticing the opposite sex with its brilliance and mating rituals. My question is - where do the molted feathers go? I never see any cardinal feathers anywhere. I think they'd be great for making a dreamcatcher.

§ Monster Mash...

Random 5 Friday
Link found on my sidebar

Going through my photo folders on my computer, I tried to come up with 5 random --weenish 'monsters' to share - for a Halloween Theme:

1] This past summer while walking along the shores of the Padre Island National Seashore [National Park Entry Fee required], there is an old tree that somehow, sometime long ago, washed ashore and eventually settled in the sand-bed just a few yards from the beach. Most times, when we have been there, the brown pelicans are seen perching on the branches that jut out of the sea. On this particular day, early in the morning with the sky color dreary, the tree silhouette was baren and looked "monstrous". Of course, being who I am, I saw it right away and thought like Stephen King...a good subject for a horror story!! What do you think?

2] This year, driving along one of the main thoroughfares to get to shopping areas...off the street a bit, and into a residential area, a couple of homes had their yards decorated for the season. Naturally I stopped and took some photos of their yards. One home, the residents had their yard an entire graveyard with tombs all over plus some gory monsters swaying in the breeze from their trees. The house across the street had a HUGE Pirate Ship....

3] Naturally my witch collection. Tho most are not 'monstrous' in any term, I thought I'd add the newest in form of "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'"....just boots:

4] Now these next two photos, you really MUST use your imagination. Dig deep within yourself and you just may see what I saw on this one late September day [photo 1] at a city park here in town. Yes, it IS a tree. A live tree. In fact, the tree is called a Live Oak. But has nothing to do with it being dead or alive. Obviously at one time in the past the city grounds' keepers trimmed this tree and cut off a large limb that no doubt was in the way of the pedestrian walkway. Over the years, the remnants took shape. And here comes the imaginative part...does it look like a skull to you where the cut was; surrounded by tree bark? [to me, the mouth area even has rotted teeth].  And the 2nd photo is of another tree cutting remnant at a whole 'nother park.  In Port Aransas, Texas this time.  Does it not look like a Grim Reaper with its head covered in a hood?!! ---

5] Lastly, a monster from a TV series. Do any of you watch GRIMM [this year, in fact, on the 25th of October, the 3rd season premieres on NBC]? Bud and I do. We have the 1st and 2nd season DVD collection and will be catching up on the season opener Saturday sometime, online. We were caught in a season finale that will be continued with Friday's episode. Anyway, GRIMM is based on some of the Brother's Grimm 'fairytales'. But in a very unusual, and kinda macabre form. The beasts from the Grimm tales are REAL in this television series. The very first one Nick [the main character] sees as a Grimm, he sees a HEXENBIEST [German for Witch Beast] take form. From there, it moves forward to many more bizarre creatures. And the morphing of regular people into the Grimm creatures is amazing. Okay, on to the Hexenbiest. I love the fantasy, the bizarre, the eerie, the spooks. And the make-up of said beasts. I was compelled to drawing one in pencil!! WARNING tho - the completed sketch is...well, it's creepy!!  My version of the GRIMM's "Hexenbiest" as seen on the program....a real live person in make-up.  Awesome.

BONUS RANDOM I know this is supposed to be random FIVE, but I wanted to share the photos I took with my cellphone while perusing the annual October Jazz Festival. Tho the bands are all amateur, they are for the most part pretty good. Bud and I would prefer more of the Big Band Era music tho. These days it's mostly Blues and what they call "Oldies" --which for us at our age isn't!! LOL Anyway, I prefer to walk the grounds to all the vendors while the music drifts through the park from all the stages. If there is a good song being played we'll stop and sit down under the covered seating areas and listen. So, here are a few of the bands and an artist that I stopped to watch while he did his work...the piece he was working on was all DOTS [he's in the photo] ---oh, and the artwork behind him is done by him!!! Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil, See no Evil. He hailed from San Antonio and was selling his art work for $15 a piece. Bud also bought me the cute little LOVE BUG in a box....its legs move/jiggle continually....