Friday - Archived Works Day!

 

"Autumn Migration, Red-tail Hawks" 

pencil drawing - © Bruce A. Morrison 

(from a South Dakota private collection)

 

Here's the second posting for "Archived Works Friday”...OK, I realize its Saturday but did post on a couple other social media platforms and forgot (!) my blog!!! This time its a pencil drawing from 35 years ago. As I mentioned before - I'll post a painting, drawing or serigraph (silkscreen print) from the "archive" files of years past...and give a little back story on the work. I hope you'll find it interesting!

 

I had a long, long relationship of just plain awe and admiration for birds of prey...I built my first (and last) “mew” when I was 12 years old, behind the garage in the back yard. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mews_(falconry) My first sidewalk “art fair” drawings were birds of prey, also at age 12. I spent too much time in the timber searching out hawk nests and never grew tired of lying on my back on a hillside along the Lizard Creek valley watching birds of prey soaring on a thermal or migrating through in the fall or spring. While doing so, I did try and squeeze in some experiments with bal-chatri, or "hair umbrella", an old East Indian idea – I carried a small home made one and a “volunteer” English Sparrow (House Sparrow) around in it on my long hikes to watch hawks. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal-chatri) I also devoured “The Falconer's Handbook” by Howard Smith, as nightly reading before bed...

 

I always had trouble drawing things that didn't hold still for extended periods of time (that just wasn't my gift)...Audubon worked from skins that he and his parties “shot” - I couldn't do that! (Didn't want to anyway!). I saved money from my Des Moines Register paper route and eventually got a camera and lenses to get pictures of the birds to draw from...this was in 1962...I'll save more of that for another post.

 

The posted drawing here was probably my first “serious” try for drawing hawks (Red-tails in this example)...I never forgot those carefree days idling on the hillside gazing up and this drawing was prompted by those memories. And although the scenery was very similar, I drew directly from the hillsides and valleys I became familiar with after moving back to NW Iowa, where we've lived for many years now. Hillsides and valleys along the Little Sioux River just south of our studio a few miles.

 

Now we can enjoy the same sort of view here off the studio deck, or a park bench on one of the hillside pastures...full circle? I haven't indulged in pencil (graphite) for a few years, but still admire a good pencil rendering when I see one!

 

(This drawing and other archived artwork can be viewed at - https://morrisons-studio.com/archived-works/)

Late April Fools?

We've been enjoying some nice days off and on at Prairie Hill Farm...nice weather wise. We've played hit and miss the past couple weeks with snow storms and got to dodge them until last night.

We get April snow storms often enough, but it's always harder when the weather lulls us into a zone of contentment...then springs the white stuff back on us; kind of like a late April Fools joke of sorts. Kind of mean spirited I think!

We didn't get any where near what was forecast but the wind is really making things tough on the birds and other critters here with what snow we did get.


This morning at breakfast Georgie and I were treated to some drama in the yard. An adult Cooper's Hawk came barreling into the yard scattering all the Robins, Juncos, and other birds. Some Juncos were so disoriented in the chase that they flew into the windows trying to get away.

The bird flew to a patch of prairie grass we hadn't burned yet and walked in and among the grasses and forbs trying to route out anyone that might be hiding within. It was fun watching the hawk stalking it's prey on foot. This is a characteristic of this order of hawks (accipiter) that we've watched many times over the years...kind of reminiscent of the Jurassic Park Veloci Raptor scenes!

Photos taken through the kitchen windows are never the best but the quickest way to scare off a skittish raptor like this is to open a window, so I tried a couple shots through the glass and even a short bit of video footage which I might show some other time. The thing that identifies this bird as an adult is the orangish barring on the breast, the dark gray back, and the red eyes.

Weather like this just keeps us inside a while longer; guess we'll just keep working at those indoor jobs for a few more days yet...but an occasional glance out the windows might bring more fun distractions...

Bald Eagles in the Valley

Something we always look forward to in the late fall is the return of Bald Eagles to the Waterman Creek Valley here in NW Iowa. We are not the Eagle magnet like the Missouri or Mississippi River areas that bring them in by the dozens or hundreds, but we can usually count on a small number on any given day. The Prairie Heritage Center had over 50 eagles during their Eagle Watch last winter....now I grew up along the Des Moines River valley back in the 50's and 60's and my first Bald Eagle sighting there was around the time I was 15 years old...it was quite a sight back then!

On Monday Georgie and I were at the Prairie Heritage Center south of here and watched 4 Bald Eagles (2 sub adults and 2 adults) settling into the eagle roosting area just off Waterman Creek and the Little Sioux River. This is a fun thing to see and it's heartening to have the eagles come back in this state and the lower 48 as a whole during the past 40 years! I believe there was an estimate of less that 600 Bald Eagles in the lower 48 states back in 1960!

I had posted ( http://prairiepainter.blogspot.com/2007/12/december-studio.html ) on local Bald Eagles almost a year ago, but they are something we'll never grow complacent or bored with, and it's really neat to have them back again.

Wenasaga Bald Eagle - Oil on canvas

(private collection)

We used to have to go north to Georgie's folk's Ontario retreat along the Wenasaga River to see Bald Eagles and nests. I did an oil painting years back of the sight of an adult Bald Eagle catching a thermal high above the Wenasaga River, just upstream from the cabin Georgie and I honeymooned in 38 years ago.

It's a neat bird and it's a fortunate thing to still be able to hold a sight such as this so dearly in our hearts.