Forcing Forsythia and Tracking Down Terns

Tracked down some tern specimens for GNSI project at the Roberson Museum's Loomis Collection. Lots of specimens actually, adults with breeding plummage, juveniles, chicks, and eggs. Will be going back for longer drawing sessions. Had to try forcing some forsythia just to see blooms of something. Pussywillows in the garden are coming along.Found some snowdrops in the garden too:) Trying to get back up to speed with drawing and painting, etc since getting back from trip. What I am really thinking about is gardening though. Here is a good video about building a raised bed garden for small spaces. Have a nice weekend!

Drawing Trip to Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University

Another road trip to Lab of O. Our GNSI group met to do research sketches for the "Common Birds in Decline" exhibit that our local chapter will be doing later this year there, which I posted about before. It was good to finally get to see the real McCoy Common Tern aka Sterna hirundo. I had a female and male and a one-day old chick "skin" as they are referred to. The Common Tern is also referred to as a sea starling. It's wing span, according to its tag, is 772mm or 30.3937 inches. I did the drawing on a cream -toned pastel paper and used HB pencil, along with some graphite and white and orange pastel pencil. The feathers on the breast are an almost pinkish grey while the top feathers are more blue-grey. Also got to see a nesting hummingbird and a ruby throated hummingbird's nest. They were so teeny...just amazing! Also out in the hallway was an astonishing skeleton of a very large snake!! EEK!