#22: Brown Creeper

First of all, a humble thank you to the sweet people who kept checking in on this half-neglected blog and sent me encouragement throughout the year. I think I'll lower my sights a bit this coming year, and maybe try to squeeze in a bird a week, or perhaps 2 a month.

Here is 2010's final posting: the appropriately-named Brown Creeper. These nimble little things are such fun to watch as they literally creep up and down the trees, perfectly camouflaged so that they almost look like little pieces of bark jerkily cascading along the trunks. They tend to be solo, making them even more difficult to spot. We've seen them mostly in southern Arizona, around Ramsey Canyon and Patagonia Lake, but Randy actually took this picture of one at Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior this past March. A nice, fun little bird to wrap up the first year of the Bird Jar. This is mechanical pencil on 8x10 sketch paper.

#21: Costas Hummingbird

It felt good just to hold a pencil again. Maybe I'll get back into this in 2011. On sketch paper, about 5"x5"

We are good friends with the Costas Hummingbird, as we always have at least one at our feeder all throughout the year, even though some people tell us it's impossible that they should stick around hot Phoenix all year-round. But they do, at least in our backyard Karob tree, and Randy always calls them "Bob" for Bob Costas, of course. The guys are gorgeous when the sunlight hits their bright purple handlebar mustache, and they are pretty territorial about the juice in that feeder, let me tell you. Fun to watch.