Audubon Arizona’s Gifts from Nature fundraiser.

Save the date!  Coming up quickly on the 11th and 12th of December, at the Cattletrack Compound in Scottsdale:

The Friday evening event is a festive preview and advance sale, with music, hors d’oevres, wine and hot cider.  It’s $25 per person (call for reservations, 602-468-6470 ext. 103). The Saturday public sale goes from 10 am – 4 pm, and has a recommended donation of $4.

There will be lots of local artists and their nature-related artwork – it’s a great place to do your holiday shopping.  Plus, proceeds plus a portion of the artist’s profits go to supporting environmental education and conservation in Arizona. Hope you can make it!  (And, keep your fingers crossed for fine weather!)

The next Three Star Owl event will be after the New Year, at Wings Over Willcox, January 13-17, 2010.

…for those of us who decide to enter the Fray, this is the kind of thing you’ll be up against:

Yes, the Holidays must be upon us, it’s the traditional Santa Hat-Wearing Wiener Dog on a Bun with Lettuce and Mustard Effigy Vessel (featuring removable lid), now appearing at your local discount department store.  Oh, Why didn’t I buy this when I saw it?

(cell phone photo A.Shock)

(Photo by E.Shock)

Spotting coatis in Sabino canyon was fortunate in many ways.  Not only is it always amazing to see a coati, but it was artistically inspiring, too.  Before the Tucson visit I had already begun a small coati effigy bowl, so on returning home I was all fired up to finish it and start another bigger one, images of live animals fresh in my head to draw from.

(left: pair of coati effigy bowls in various states of completion; photo A.Shock)

The little one is sculpted, textured, and burnished — bone-dry and awaiting bisque-firing.  The bigger one is still wet, with sponges propping up a tail that wants to slump forward, and a plastic bag over the head to keep the snout workable for a little longer.  (Our cool fall weather is keeping things drying at a snail’s pace, frustrating when you’re trying to get things through the studio rapidly, with the holidays coming up).

Sometimes clay places practical limitations on forms, and there’s no way to make tails as gloriously long and sinuous as real coati tails. But the snouty-shoulderyness of the climbing-digging critters is do-able, as is the higher-in back posture that makes them look like they’re always trundling downhill.  These pieces are destined for sawdust-firing, I think, so the smoky coloration of the twilight-colored desert animals should be suitably earthy, but I’m still thinking about how to get the spectacles and the rings to be visible but not too contrasty.

The little one is apparently a male.  Be sure to click to enlarge.

(All photos A.Shock)

…is bent on both mayhem and mischief.

She was lurking at the north entrance to Papago Park early Saturday morning, in the low spot where the White-crowned sparrows, House finches, and Mourning doves are usually found in great numbers on chilly winter mornings.  She even swooped over our heads on her way up to the top of the utility pole.

(Right, first-year Cooper’s hawk in Papago Park, Accipiter cooperi; photo E. Shock)

But just after E snapped this telephoto, the Coop’s glimpsed more grandiose prey: she started the sparrows, but flew right over them.  I can’t say I’ve ever seen a bird-specialist like a Cooper’s hawk chase a full-grown Black-tailed jackrabbit, but this bird did, and kept after it for ten or twenty seconds, as the jack zigged and zagged evasively until the Cooper’s pulled up, empty-fisted.  What do you suppose she thought she was going to do with it if she caught it?  She either had an inflated idea of her own skills, or was a very hungry bird: no matter how spry a flyer, she can’t have been that good a footer!

(Note: Cooper’s hawks weigh 8-21 ounces, and jacks weigh 4-6 pounds!)

This hawk was bent on causing trouble: here’s a picture of the same bird a few minutes later, on the felon’s side of the fence, trespassing on clearly signed military property.  Scofflaw!

(All photos E.Shock)

Click here to view another picture of an immature Cooper’s hawk in Papago Park that E took this spring.