The Eurasian Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto) has an agenda well-befitting a Columbid: “Must Colonize New World.”

Actually, it started before that, and a lot farther east: a native of central Asia, the Collared Dove had populated Europe as far west as Great Britain by the 1950s.  By the early ’80s, a population had taken hold in Florida, likely coming from the Bahamas where they also had been introduced (or escaped captivity) in the 1970s. From there, the large doves filled the southeastern US, and have been spreading inexorably west and north.  The first documented report of the species in the state of Arizona was in Eager, AZ, on March 6, 2000, and they were regularly sighted in Maricopa County by the end of the same year.

As mentioned in a previous post, they’re quite similar to the African Collared Dove (which used to be called the Ringed Turtle Dove), but they’re bigger, and a darker beige, and have different vocalizations.  In the Phoenix area and over much of Arizona, Eurasian Collared Doves have become quite numerous — on some days I would ungenerously call them a pest in our yard — and a few theories exist as to why they’ve spread so rapidly.  One is that they fill a niche left empty by the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon  (Perhaps in the Northeast U.S., but I’m not so sure that applies to the desert regions?).

Like the African Collared Doves, they show a disturbing willingness to become tame, and quickly learn  to fly down to empty feeders when they see someone coming out with a bag of birdseed.  I’ve caught them lurking on top of my studio — their toenails clicking on the roof, their pink foot skin glowing hazily through the translucent plexi panels — as if lobbying for the filling of neglected feeders in a kind of inexorable zombie-like way.  They’re hard to miss since their arrival is a dry noisy wing flapping, the thump of a hard landing of a big heavily-wingloaded airship, and the inevitable repetitive hoo-ing and gibbering that follows.

(Images: pencil sketchbook drawing and photo by A.Shock)

…he is Hector Roi:

“Hector Roi” watercolor and colored pencil, 7×10″ by A. Shock 2009

Raccoon recount

Also, on an unrelated but more naturalistic topic, a reassessment of the local raccoon population has been necessary.  The night after the Hair Hen post, mama raccoon showed up with FOUR kits.  It was clear that this could not be yet another litter, and also that there were not two Hairhens: it was one female who was bringing out cubs one or two at a time, as they became ready to join her nightly foragings.  So, as it stands now, the count is ONE hairhen and FOUR kits.  Last night they were preening and nipping each other in the fork of the big Palo Verde, making endearing snarling sounds.  Too dark for photos, unfortunately.

The desert suburbs of Phoenix are Columbid-rich, that is, there are many species of doves and pigeons.  Yesterday I was putting out seed in a neighbor’s gravel drive just before sunset.  The area is quite open, and at that time of day it fills with fat, free-loading doves and pigeons who are used to being fed there and then: after only a minute, there were 30 birds chowing down, their heads bobbing up and down rapidly like sewing machine needles, almost all of them Columbids.  I counted six species both native and exotic — all the species regularly seen in our neighborhood and most seen regularly in the Phoenix area at this time of year: Mourning dove, White-winged dove, Inca dove, Eurasian Collared Dove, African Collared dove, and Rock Pigeon.

There was only one African Collared dove (Streptopelia roseogrisea).  This species, like its close relative the now-abundant Eurasian Collared dove, is an exotic.  But unlike the ECDO, which was introduced in one place and then spread itself across the nation, the African Collared dove (or Ringed Turtle dove) was originally released very close to here but hasn’t spread widely, even in the Phoenix area.

The plumage of the two exotic doves are somewhat similar: both are beige and have a black crescent on their neck.  They can be hard to tell apart, until you get the hang of it.  The African is a smaller, paler dove, almost white, with a gentle two-note call that sounds like the chorus from the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil”: “Woo-HOOooo!”  The larger Eurasian is slightly darker in plumage and has a hoarse three-note call with the emphasis on the middle note: “hoo-HOO-hoo” which it utters incessantly.

Our neighborhood hosts a small population of the daintier African Collared dove, and one of them spends most of its time mooching in our yard and our neighbor’s yard.  Because of its habit of snarfing up seed rapidly, packing it into its crop and then flying off to digest at leisure, we’ve named it Hoover, like the vacuum cleaner. (Hoover used to have a mate, Eureka, but she’s not around these days).  These birds are quite “sweet”: by that I mean they are not very afraid of people, unlike the other doves which all have a proper wariness towards humans.  They will fly right down and land on the ground at your feet if they think seed is to be had.  Not surprisingly given these behavior traits, there has been debate among ornithologists as to how domesticated this species (or variety) of dove is, but currently it’s enjoying full species status.

(Images of ACDOs: sketchbook pencil sketch and photo, A.Shock.)

…in which Galactic Possum battles the Celestial Army of Campervans and nearly always loses.  Nearby constellation Ferafelis vorax waits to feast on the carnage.  Visible only in the Southern Hemisphere.

(A.Shock 2009, 6″x9″ Watercolor, gouache and charcoal)

We missed some of Spring in the desert this year, so last weekend we went in search of it under the Mogollon Rim: Sunday found us hiking along the West Fork of Oak Creek in Sedona.  It’s one of the more popular trails in that popular area, and at times it’s mobbed by clusters of sweaty Phoenicians looking for a quick cool-off up in the oak pine red rock country.  But the weather in the desert has been cooler than seasonal, and although we certainly weren’t alone on the path, the trail wasn’t as crowded as we feared.

The day couldn’t have been more beautiful — Oak Creek Canyon at that point is a mile high (literally) so it’s still spring up there, with lots of showy color.  Both Scarlet and Yellow Monkey Flower (Mimulus cardinalis and guttatus), Golden columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha), and Western spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis) were at their peak. Columbian monkshood (Aconitum columbianum) and Deers-ears (Frasera speciosa) were just beginning, as were the False Solomon’s seal (Smilacina sp).  Butterflies abounded — both on flowers and on ammonia-rich heron-wash smears on the gravelly banks — and the air was lively with swallowtails, skippers and sulphurs, and others I don’t know.

The local birds were lively and showy too, the males singing and holding territory: Lazuli bunting (Passerina amoena), Black-headed grosbeak (Pheucticus melanocephalus), Western tanagers (Piranga ludoviciana), and Red-faced warblers (Cardenlina rubifrons) were among the colorful singers, while Cordilleran flycatchers (Empidonax occidentalis), House wrens (Troglodytes aedon), Plumbeous vireo (Vireo plumbeus) and the ethereal-voiced Hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus) were vocal but plainer of plumage.

Now, I admire a little brown bird as much as anyone — the House wren is a delight to watch, singing so hard its little barred tail vibrates — but it’s tough to not be swept away by the sight of tiny woodland jewels like Red-faced warblers, who were numerous and singing, or the Painted redstart (Myioborus pictus) who was foraging quietly and intently as if he had nestlings and a mate to feed.

To the right is a page of the day’s birdlist, sketchily illustrated on the fly with really tiny thumbnails of a couple of the brighter species.  (I’ve been honing down a back-packing sized watercolor kit, and it’s coming along well, although I haven’t yet gotten the paints pared down to an Altoids-tin, since Jerry’s Artarama is still out of empty half-pans). The bird-list is small-scale, too — in a Moleskine journal just 3.5×5.5″.

The Broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) were zizzing around fussily, sometimes more easily heard than seen, but we lucked into looking up at just the right time to see this Hen settle onto her nest on a bough directly over the trail.  Check out her clever lichen-camo, and how it blends right down into the lichen-covered Big-toothed maple branch!

The Phoenix-Sedona round trip with an eight-mile hike in the middle makes for one long day, but even so we came back refreshed and renewed, glad to have a cooler option when the desert is too hot to hike.  Graduated seasons are one of the nicest things about living in a state with delightfully drastic topography.

(Photos from top to bottom: red rock overhang, West Fork of Oak Creek, A.Shock; Spiderwort being pollinated by Eurobee, E.Shock; Golden columbine dragon-heads, A.Shock; illustrated bird-list, A.Shock; Broad-tailed hummer hen on nest, E.Shock)

In our area, the first Gambel’s quail chicks of the year usually start showing up in early May, clustered around their parents under the mesquite trees in the yard, pecking expertly at the ground like the precocial youngsters they are.  This year, since we weren’t around then, we missed the “nebula phase” of their development — when they’re so small and move so fast that it’s hard to count them: a streaky brown cloud of down orbiting the adults like electrons, running everywhere because their legs are so short.

Now that we’re back, the feeders are full again, and the parents are bringing their broods around.  For the past two days there’s been a family of six cleaning up nyger thistle that the frenzy of fressing finches let fall from the front mesquite feeder: two adult quail and four chicks.  The chicks are still quite young, but no longer downy — adolescent really, and they’re beginning to get little nubs on their foreheads where their topknots will grow in.  They are still cryptically colored buffy-streaky so that they’re nearly invisible against the soil in the dappled sunlight let through by the mesquite’s tiny compound leaflets.  Papa usually stands watch as the family feeds, which they do at a more leisurely pace than when it’s the adults alone.  This may be a clutch incubated in the spiky tangle of our fan-palm, where a hen successfully raised a brood of 9 last year.

Normally I’d snap a photo of the family scene above.  But because I can’t get a decent picture through the reflection-hazed windows looking out onto the feeders (I’ve tried!), and going outside would start the whole shebang to flee, I thought I’d sketch from life (above).  I’m just finding my way around watercolors again after a very long absence, and haven’t managed to loosen up as much as I’d like — at this point, I seem to produce tinted drawings, rather than acheiving a freer painting style.  One reason for that is that it’s such a different process than capturing “birdness” in the broad, unblended swatches of opaque glaze color, which is what I normally do, as in this Three Star Owl male Gambel’s quail wall tile pictured to the right.

(The third in a series: read the first and second parts)

It had been a while since I’d had a note from professor Harrower with Ganskopf numbers to illustrate, and there had been some changes at the Foundation since my last visit. Stanley was still at the front door in his epauletted shirt and ill-fitting trousers with the gold side-stripes, but now there was a sternly uniformed security guard at the Special Collections entrance.  He had no name tag and a sidearm.  Also, the old-school turnstyle had been replaced by a state of the art metal-detector.

Another difference was the librarian’s custodianship — after making sure I was settled, Miss Laguna left me alone with the day’s owls, which she’d never done before.  This may have been because for the first time since I’d been coming to the Foundation Library, there was another patron there, also viewing an item from the Collection.  When I asked, Miss Laguna emphatically whispered “That’s Dr. Danneru” and glided solicitously back across the room to his table.  I couldn’t see what he was accessing — the piece was sunk deeply into its black velvet cushion.  So while pretending to fuss with my lamp, I spent a moment studying the man instead, but couldn’t tell much.  An academic, probably (who else would be here?), although he emitted a mildly exotic sleekness (“Europeaness” Becca would call it snarkily, making it a point to pronounce it anatomically) that didn’t coincide with my experience of university professors.  Maybe this explained why Miss Laguna was overlooking the steaming cup of contraband on the table next to him — or maybe had even supplied it: while I was confined to dry media and a dry throat, “Dr. Danneru” had hot tea.

Still, I wasn’t truly jealous of Miss Laguna’s attention: it was easier to draw without anyone attending me, and I could focus on the current crop of “fetishes”. It was a mixed group of owls: two of stone, and one of a brass-like metal. Here is the finished rendering, along with my hasty notes.

From left to right:

• GKC/orn111a (3.23cm ht): carved red-veined marble cobble in the shape of an “earless” owl.  The Library catalog describes it as “alabaster”.  Feet hooflike.  Note to Professor Harrower: I don’t know what the backs of these pieces look like; without Miss Laguna’s once-again purple-gloved fingers nearby, I was not able to touch the artefacts to turn them over.

• GKC/orn98a (3.88cm ht): carved semi-transluscent green stone — jade, jadeite, nephrite?  also an “earless” owl, its ventral vermiculation or maculation indicated by a sort of checkerboard.  Chip in head above left eye.  Tail? toes? at bottom of piece indicated by five points.  Must be tail; why would there be five toes?  Didn’t GKC/orn335f also have 5 toes?
  

• GKC/orn399d (3.10cm ht): also “earless” although it gives the impression of having ears put back in irritation like a cat. This is the only metal owl I’ve seen so far; cast? brass? bronze?  The Library catalog uses the abbreviation “br” which is not helpful.  In brackets next to that are three characters in a stroke-character alphabet I don’t recognize except they are not Greek or Cyrillic.  When no one was looking, I tipped this one up just a little with the eraser end of my mechanical pencil, and could see a small loop on the back, as if it were meant to be hung on a cord or sewn to a garment.
  

My stay was shorter than usual: I worked rapidly to complete the pencil sketches and packed up in a hurry, burning my fingers on the lampshade. After indicating to Miss Laguna she could return the owls to their secret nests in the secure stacks, I rushed back to my hotel room and laptop — there was something I was eager to look up.

(The second in a series: read the first here)

The next session at the Ganskopf Foundation Library was much like the last (the first I omitted because no drawing actually occurred, just filling out lengthy forms, and being issued a visitor’s ID).  This second appointment had also been arranged by Professor Harrower.  Once again he’d sent the list of three accession numbers to request for illustration by regular postal mail — I still haven’t met him in person.

After I’d signed in and passed through the security turnstyle, the same librarian, Miss Laguna, came out of the glass office to meet me.  Like last time, I was the only patron there.  I handed her the note with the acquisition numbers of the target owls.  She seemed to hesitate slightly when she saw it and read the numbers, but she disappeared into the secure stacks and left me at the same table as before to set up my graphite pencils, kneaded eraser, and pad.  This time I had brought my own desk lamp, and plugged it in where she had indicated.  The stronger directional light made a big difference: fluorescent ceiling lighting flattens everything out and distorts color.

When she returned, Miss Laguna had three “fetishes” on the black pillow, and as she walked two of them clunked together a little at each step.  Her casualness about this, after last time with the rubber gloves and special measures, was surprising.  These owls were larger than the previous selections, each being several inches long, and made of what looked to me like pine bark.

Here are brief descriptive notes from that session:

• GKC/orn247 a-b (shown above, green background): these two squat, eccentric owls are very similar to item GKC/orn872b which I drew last time: “eared” owls made of bark, probably pine.  They differ from the earlier one in that more deliberate geometric and linear carving has been made on their surface, instead of merely allowing the fissures in the bark to show owlishness.  My unscientific response is that these carvings are humorous, and they make me laugh.  I’ve drawn them together since they seem, at least by accession number, to be associated, although to my eye they don’t have much else in common, other than being small pinebark owls.
• The third figure, GKC/orn644f (right), seems too large to call a “fetish” — it’s 10.3 cm in height, and what I would characterize as anthropomorphic: it looks like an “Owl-man” because its legs are long and end in paw-like feet rather than talons.  As with the other two, the back is flat and un-altered, except for a vertical groove indicating the legs, which corresponds poorly to the one in the front.  I find this one a bit creepy: with no arms (or wings) and an uneven, stretched silhouette, it seems like a hostile doll, up to no good when no one’s looking.

But creepy or humorous, these pieces looked to me like indigeno pine bark carvings sold in tourist shops in Chihuahua — admirable folk art, but not “mystery relics” as they’re being called in the press, and not particularly ancient.  However, I’m not an expert.

I mentioned that to Miss Laguna, and asked if she knew why the Herr Doktor Ganskopf had collected them, but her answer was incomplete, something like, “They’re cute, but the other one is more…”  I asked if she meant Creepy Owl-man, but she said no, the simpler pine-bark owl from my previous visit. When I asked if it would it be possible to see that one again, she told me it was on loan that week, and lifted the pillow with the fetishes and took them back to the secure stacks.  I unplugged my lamp so the bulb had time to cool.

The only other thing that happened was that when I got out to the parking lot, it was raining and the car had a flat tire.  Glen, the parking attendant, offered to put the doughnut on for me, but I told him it was a rental, and they would fix it.  It took the rental company guy forever to find the place, but he finally arrived and took care of it.