Here are some little paintings of bird sightings at Merritt Island.

I recently explored the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge for the first time. The trails are mostly wetlands, with one trail through pine flatwoods leading up to the St. Johns river. Very beautiful place! I visited it on a cool, slightly overcast day which was perfect for a place that could potentially be very hot and sunny.

There were TONS of birds there. I was very excited to see my first Virginia Rail among them. (Of course it quickly ducked into the reeds so I couldn’t get a photo.)

I saw an Eastern Phoebe at one of the lakes on my street a few days ago. Today I saw Catbirds. What a delight to have these charming birds returning from their Summer up North!

In this little painting I was experimenting with Walnut Ink Crystals on watercolor paper for the background, the bird drawn in pencil with a light wash of watercolor over top.

I am currently doing the ’30×30 challenge’ which I learned about through the blog resurrection fern. The challenge is for Canada, but I just loved the idea so I decided to do it personally without officially signing up… The challenge is to spend 30 minutes outside for 30 days, that is the month of June.

At the same time there in a challenge among birders to find as many different species within your selected county during the month of June. So these challenges go together perfectly!

Here are some of my highlights from the first week:

June 1st, Roseate Spoonbill at Lake Geneva (rare to see so inland)

June 2nd, two Swallow-tailed Kite’s

June 4th, Northern Parula mama with fledgeling

June 4th, gorgeous field of flowers along the shores of Lake Harney

June 5th, Brown-headed Nuthatch

June 7th, a very pretty juvenile White Ibis at Lake Jesup

June 8th, a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher after a Red-shouldered Hawk… personally I thought it a bit daring for this tiny bird to be flying around the hawk like this!

June 8th, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird at the Econ River… I love to see a hummingbird in the wild!

A couple more little paintings from April.

Catbird.

Red-bellied Woodpeckers, April 14th. Back at this time they were working together to feed little ones in the nest. So sweet! I have photos of them too…

During that same week, the Pileated Woodpeckers were building their nest in Red-headed Woodpecker’s old hole. They were working very hard to renovate it, making it much much larger!

And the Downy Woodpecker was up and about too…

The Great Crested Flycatcher’s were also there, putting up some fights against the Red-bellied Woodpecker’s. All the cavity dwellers fighting over territory. I remember thinking of all the little paintings I could have done! But I only got around to that one.

Since then I’ve moved and no longer get to watch these birds, I do miss them!

I never posted all the little paintings I did of bird sightings back in April.

April 5th, Turkey displaying

April 6th, Mockingbird nest building.

April 7th, Broad-headed Skink
Saw this at Gemini Springs and it was the most giant skink or lizard type thing I have ever seen! Looked it up online and they get to be up to 13″.

April 8th, Blue Gray Gnatcatchers

I still have a couple little paintings from April I haven’t even scanned in yet. Must do that!

Bob White’s have been calling. I spooked a group when I was walking and they were hiding in the tall grasses. A few days later I saw some in the open walking across the street in a row!

Great Crested Flycatcher appeared on April 1st.

Prairie Warbler.

There was a lizard on the hummingbird feeder. The hummingbird didn’t know what to do about it, just  kept flying around the feeder looking at that darn lizard.

On the first day of Spring I was so excited about all the new things I was seeing out in nature. This is an ongoing feeling, but in any case it being the first day of Spring and the start of a new chapter I decided to do some little paintings of sightings throughout the season. Something to compliment my photos and remind me of things I’ve seen. Here are a few I’ve done so far…

Blue Jay squawking at an indifferent Crow

Swallow-tailed Kite

Cedar Waxwing

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Field Mouse/Meadow Vole? Not sure exactly, but it was cute.

The Florida Scrub Jay. Not only are they strikingly beautiful and quite friendly, but they live in family groups so if you see one you know others are not far behind… And of course any birds that either live in groups or mate for life are more endearing to a sentimental human like me!

The Horned Grebe is the star of the show this Winter at Black Point Wildlife Drive. And I love them!! They are the cutest thing! They also tend to dart underwater for long periods of time and pop up elsewhere in the waters, which can be suspenseful and sort of fun to watch (if you don’t mind waiting around).