#25: Montezuma Quail

This morning when Randy saw this, he told me he thought I had definitely "stepped up my game" from my last post. I had intended to try Mr. Yellowlegs in colored pencil, but after scrapping three pages, decided it was just time to move on to a new bird. Sorry, Yellowlegs, you have lost out to a much more colorful bird, the male Montezuma Quail, which is here in Prismacolor pencils on 8.5x11 sketch paper.

My bird book says that this rare bird, which is only found in Mexico, parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, is "very secretive and difficult to see." I think this must be true, because the one and only time we have seen one was when it was slowly crossing a dirt road up in the Chiricahua mountains near Portal. Key word: SLOWLY. It was like a slow-motion fat little balloon inching its way across the road and on into the rocky grasses along the side. When Randy spotted it, he darn near skidded to a sudden stop, and we got out of the car slowly and quietly so we could watch it. It's a big thing to see one of these. People at our little B&B were excited when we told them. Some people visit the Chiricahuas JUST to try to spot a Montezuma Quail. Ahh, the birding world. It's got its quirks, but it is a fun world, nonetheless.

#24 Yellowlegs rev 1.1

I'm going to call this one: Running Out of Paper and Time.



I started it a couple of days ago and haven't felt like sitting back down to fix it, or start over (which is what I absolutely must do, given the grave miscalculation in subject size to paper size. I mean, I ran out of space EVERYWHERE on this!).

For me, Yellowlegs rank among the more interesting shore birds, because they, at least, tend to stick out with those crazy yellow stilts for legs. I'll give it another shot in colored pencil, maybe that will inspire me to do a serious rendition.

#23: Black-Tailed Gnatcatcher

I decided to draw this on an ATC, Art Trading Card, which means it's all of 2.5" x 3.5"



I also drew it in really poor lighting, so let that be a lesson to me going forward. Anyway, gnatcatchers seem industrious and quirky to me. I love the buzzy whistling noise they make in the palo verde trees around here. I hardly ever know if I'm seeing a blue-gray gnatcatcher or a black-tailed gnatcatcher, and to prove that point, I was supposed to have drawn a blue-gray gnatcatcher and selected this picture, only to realize later, thanks to Randy re-examining things, that it is a black-tailed.