Eastern cottontail, Egan’s Creek Greenway, Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, Florida
This is a wildlife wrap-up of my trip back east since my next trip to Mongolia is coming up in three weeks and I’ve got posts coming about that. I was going to do a short post about the wildlife that I saw in Georgia, a bit of Florida and New York state. Instead it took me almost all of yesterday to pick out one of each of as many critters as I had decent photos of and make any adjustments necessary. Turns out I saw a LOT. I’m going to start with mammals, then birds, reptiles and finally insects. It’s a long post, but I wanted everything in one place for future reference. Hope you enjoy this wildlife trip!
MAMMALS
White-tailed deer, Okefenokee NWR. Stephen C. Foster State Park, GeorgiaEastern grey squirrel, Okefenokee NWR, Stephen C. Foster State Park, GeorgiaEastern grey squirrel and red squirrel, Hudson River Valley, New York State (red squirrel was a new species for me)Eastern chipmunk, Hudson River Valley, New York StateMuskrat, pond in the Hudson River Valley, New York (seen while out painting on location with Jim Coe; first muskrat I had ever seen, so had to post a photo even though it’s not a good one; for the record)
BIRDS
Wood stork, Harris Neck NWRWhite ibis, Okefenokee NWR, Stephen C. Foster State Park, GeorgiaGlossy ibis, Savannah NWR, South CarolinaAnhinga, Okefenokee NWR, GeorgiaTricolor heron, Okefenokee NWR, GeorgiaGreat blue heron Egan’s Creek Greeway, Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, Florida (notice the turtles off to the right)Great egret, Egan’s Creek Greenway, Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, FloridaLittle blue heron, Turtle River area, GeorgiaGreen heron, Harris Neck NWR, GeorgiaRing-necked ducks, Hudson River Valley, New York stateBlue-winged teal; American alligator, Savannah NWRCommon moorhen (juvenile), Harris Neck NWRTurkey vultures, Hudson River Valley, New York stateTurkey, Hudson River Valley, New York statePileated woodpecker, Okefenokee NWRHairy woodpecker, Hudson River Valley, New York stateRed-bellied woodpecker, Hudson River Valley, New York stateWhite-breasted nuthatch, Hudson River Valley, New York stateBlue jay, Hudson River Valley, New York statePurple finch and goldfinches, Hudson River Valley, New York stateTufted titmouse, Hudson River Valley, New York stateCardinal, near Harris Neck NWRMourning dove, near Turtle River, GeorgiaMockingbird, near Turtle River, GeorgiaBlue-grey gnatcatcher, near Turtle River, GeorgiaWarbler, Okefenokee NWR, Stephen C. Foster State Park, GeorgiaPalm warbler, Egan’s Creek Greemway, Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, FloridaSlate-colored junco, Hudson River Valley, New York stateBoat-tailed grackle, Savannah NWR
Birds I saw but did not get photos of or don’t have good ones include: swallowtail kite (no photo), cormorants, various ducks, a belted kingfisher, cowbird, snowy egret, and gallinule.
REPTILES
American alligator, Okefenokee NWR, Okefenokee Swamp Park ( The park people named him”Crazy” because he is very aggressive and is the current dominant bull gator; 12′ long, 800-900 lbs.)American alligator, Okefenokee NWRRiver cooters, Egan’s Creek Greenway, Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, FloridaSoft-shelled turtle, Okefenokee NWRBanded water snakes, Okefenokee NWRMidland water snake, Okefenokee NWRMidland water snake, Okefenokee NWRPenninsula ribbon snake, Okefenokee NWRWater moccasin/cottonmouth, Okefenokee NWRWater moccasin/cottonmouth (I was told by a local who works in the woods, so has to know snakes, that this was the biggest one he’d ever seen and, from the bulge, it looked like the snake had a “belly full of frogs). This species is extremely venomous)Green anole, Okefenokee NWR
I’m currently on a road trip in southern Georgia. I flew to New York on March 10 (which is why there was no blog post last week) to attend the Explorers Club Annual Dinner (ECAD) and had a terrific time. The opening of the group exhibition “Wildlife Art: Field to Studio” is the evening of March 31 at the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut. What to do in between? It didn’t really make sense to fly home to California for two weeks and then fly back, so I decided to see what there would be to do on the east coast where it was warmer and in the same time zone. After considering a number of possibilities, some more ambitious than others, including flying to Paris for a week or going to somewhere like Belize or Costa Rica, I took another look at the map, Florida being too expensive and everything pretty much booked, and saw….the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, somewhere I’d wanted to go since I was a kid. Plus there’s the barrier islands of the Georgia coast. Sold! I flew down on Monday to Savannah, picked up a rental car and drove to my first of three Airbnb lodgings, this one near Brunswick. The next day I did quite a long drive over to the western entrance to the swamp. Here’s some of what I saw:
I sat at the end of this boardwalk to sketch and do a watercolor.There was a large flock of white ibis all aroundOf course everyone wants to see the alligators, but they’re a wild animal, so you never know. But this little one swam right across in front of where I was sitting.On the way back I spotted this red-shouldered hawkI was on another section of boardwalk over water and there was suddenly a loud “galoop” of water. This whitetail doe came out from underneath. I had walked right over where she was. But she stopped, had a little chin scratch and then started to browse the leaves on the trees.I took a break at a bump-out seating deck and there was this green anole (currently turned brown) who stayed around for me to take quite a few photosI got up to leave, walked over the balcony. looked down, saw a movement in the water and spotted this water snake (non-poisonous) swimming by
The next day I met up with artist and fellow Explorers Club member Alan Campbell, who took me around Harris Neck NWR.
The refuge is known for it’s wood stork rookery.Wood stork gathering nesting materialsWood stork carrying twigs back to the rookery. The birds have recently been removed from the endangered species list.
We twice drove the route through the refuge so went a couple of times to a dike bordering the big pond where the storks since things are always changing. The second time we saw this turtle!
River cooter, a local species of turtleThere were a lot of little gators by the edge of the dike. This one came up onto the grass and Alan got some good close-ups. A few second later he raised his hind end and we both wondered what he was going to do, but he simply turned and walked back down into the water.Gator reflectionGator yawnOne of the quintessential trees of the Deep South…a live oak festooned with Spanish moss
It was a great day! I’m on the road again with trips to the other entrances to the Okefenokee and explorations of the barrier islands.
Black-crowned night heron. Minding its own business.
We just spent a couple of days in Berkeley, staying at the Berkeley Marina Doubletree. Our room was on the first floor overlooking the marina, so all I had to do was open the sliding glass door and walk ten feet to see and photograph the various birds that were hanging about, including this black-crowned night heron. As you can see, it was late afternoon and the light was really nice. I’d taken three shots when…
Incoming!
a great blue heron flew into the frame from stage left. I just stood there and kept shooting. The smaller heron sprang into the air.
I want THIS rock.
And got out of the way as fast as it could.
My rock.
Not only was this a great little slice of life sequence, but…wow….the light.
I am happy now.
It was all over in less than 30 seconds.
There.
The night heron, having moved not really any farther than it had to, continued on about its evening routine.
Obviously, everyone knows what has happened in Paris and my thoughts are with the Parisians and French people. I’ve only been to Paris once, in December 1996. My husband had business-related meetings so I had the better part of a week to wander the city. Paris is one of those places that will exceed your every expection and then some, even on wintry cold days. One of the highlights was the location of the group dinner that the people who were hosting the meeting arranged. A once-in-a-lifetime experience since it was in the entry atrium of the Louvre. Under the Pyramid. Followed by an after-hours tour of highlights like the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and Winged Victory. I’d been in the museum all that day and certainly didn’t mind see those iconic works of art in the quiet and lack of crowds.
It had turned out that at some interval, once a week or once a month, I don’t recall at this point, artists were allowed in to set up their easels and make copies of the master works. This is a traditional way of learning to paint in oil and one that I did with a private instructor for two years albeit from prints, not originals. I took photos of a number of the artists at work.
This artist is starting on a copy of one of my all-time favorite paintings: “Madame Recamier” by Jacques-Louis David. She was a most remarkable woman. You can read more about her here.
“La Grand Odalisque” is one of Ingres most famous paintings, done during a time when the Orientalist part of the Romantic Movement was in full swing. Exotic eastern locales and paintings with harem themes were very popular. More about it here.
This enormous painting, “The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon I and the Crowning of Empress Josephone in Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804” is also by Jacques-Louis David. The artist has wisely chosen to focus only on Josephine as she kneels before Napoleon to receive her crown. In a time when there was no television or film, this is how major events, including battles, would be visually recorded for posterity. David was there, having been commissioned to create this epic work. Here is what the Louvre has to say.
I’m sorry to say that I can’t identify this painting or the artist.
Long shot of one of the galleries where artists were working. If I ever get back to Paris I will try my best to be there when I can do this.
On another day I worked my way from the top floor to the ground floor at the Musee de Orsay and came upon an artist painting a copy of one of Monet’s water lilies works.
When not in one of the art museums I wandered about the city, photographing whatever caught my fancy, like these water spouts on the side of Notre-Dame Cathedral.
Across the river from Notre-Dame were vendors selling everything from newspapers to books to stamps to art.
On my last day, a very cold and drizzly one, I took the Metro to the famous Montmartre district, home of Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, whose originals I had finally gotten to see at the Musee de Orsay, having adored his work since high school. It’s one of the few districts in Paris that still has the original and fabulous Art Nouveau entrances.
And even on a day like that the artists were out painting and selling their work.
I loved ambling about these old narrow, windy streets.
A close-up of the panel of art prints that can be seen on the right in the photo above.
I even got to see a Montmartre cat.
Since it was December, one saw holiday decorations everywhere and, look!, there’s Pere Noel. Three of “him”!
So, while it is a sad time in Paris right now and I’ve only spent a little time in France, I know that the French are indomitable and will not let what happened change who they are. Joyeux Noel!
The Winged Victory in the Louvre
(All the photos were shot with a Nikon N2000 film camera and scanned from 4×6″ prints, then adjusted in Photos.)
I’m back from our three week trip to England and Romania, a success on all counts! It was lovely to be in England in May, my first trip there in eleven years. Not much had changed…the countryside was still beautiful, the beer was excellent and I was able to get a nice selection of flower garden seeds at a big Garden Centre. I loved seeing Stonehenge again and we finally got to really explore Avebury, which we’d only had time to drive through on a previous trip.
Here’s a album of sketches, plus a couple of watercolors I did (Sakura Micron .01 pen on paper):
In San Francisco waiting to board and then at Heathrow waiting to get the rental car. It’s fun sometimes to just find something to sketch right where one is.New Forest PoniesStockbridge, HampshireStonehengeStonehengeStonehengeSheep grazing near StonehengeStonehengeStonehengeAveburyAveburyBourton-on-the-Water
And on to Romania, a country that I had never been to before. I did a little research and ended up booking a tour to the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania in hopes of experiencing the largest surviving areas of the ancient forests that used to cover Europe and seeing European brown bear, of which there are close to 5000 in Romania, the largest population of any country in Europe. I succeeded on both counts and and all that and more will be the subject of a couple of upcoming blog posts.
View from the restaurant patio where I and my driver/guide had lunch en routeScenery near a monastery that we hiked up to. In the foreground is a haystackThe second day we went on an eight hour hike high up into the mountains to what is called The Alpine Hut, which is where I did this sketch. And had a well-earned beer.Another view from The Alpine Hut, which was between two ridgelines in the sub-alpine zone
After a week in Romania, we went back to London for three days, catching the “Sargent and Friends” exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery on the last day. We also spent time just hanging out at Trafalgar Square, where I did these sketches.
The spire of St. Martins-in-the-FieldsSir Edward Landseer’s lions at the base of the Nelson Column, Trafalgar SquareQuick copy of a dog in a painting by Murillo; people at Trafalgar SquareWay in the distance we could see the Egg and the dome of St. Paulr’s from the window of our Airbnb apartment in Soho, which had the most amazing view of the city
On our last day, we spent the afternoon at St. James Park, which had great birdwatching and many very old trees. I got out my watercolors, finally, and did a couple of small paintings.
Ancient oak tree, St. James ParkPencil sketches of birdsPencil sketches of birdsPencil sketches of birdsA view of the London Eye from St. James ParkLondon skyline from the apartment
I’m currently on the road, having just spent a five days in England, my first trip there since 2004, and am now in Bucharest, Romania. I’m heading out to the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania tomorrow to Pietra Craiululi National Park hoping to see brown bear and other wildlife. There are more bears in Romania than any other European country, around 5000. I hope to get in some sketching and painting time also. As you can see from the above photo, I got to visit Stonehenge, which is as impressive as I remember it being from my first trip to England in 1987.
Here’s a few favorite images from The Sceptered Isle:
Great Tew, the Cotswolds“Lyrebird” Sculpture by the LakesNew Forest poniesThe 3 Cups Inn, Stockbridge, one of the places we stayedBlack-headed gull, the New ForestRoad sign, Great Tew
Roy Chapman Andrews’ Flag, which he carried on his Central Asiatic Expeditions to Mongolia in the 1920s
The weekend festivities are over and The Explorers Club Annual Dinner was everything I’d hoped it would be. It was a full schedule, starting with a New Members Reception on Friday afternoon. But first I went to the Club the day before when it wasn’t crowded and explored the building from top to bottom. You can take a virtual tour here. I wanted to find one specific item, shown above- the Flag carried by Roy Chapman Andrews to Mongolia during his Central Asiatic Expeditions in the 1920s.
Roy Chapman Andrews’ photo on the wall of those who have served as President of the Explorers Club or received one of the Club’s honors
I also found this photo of him. Almost all the others are studio portraits. I love that his shows him in Mongolia out in the field. The domestic nanny goat is nursing what I think is a baby Mongolian gazelle. The Explorers Medal is the highest honor bestowed by the Club. Other recipients have included Admiral Peary, Jane Goodall, Thor Heyerdahl, the crew of Apollo 8- the first men on the moon, Sir Edmund Hillary, Mary Leakey (for the Leakey family), George Schaller, Michael Fay, Edward O. Wilson, Sylvia Earle and James Cameron.
Club headquarters, particularly the staircases, is filled with art, much of it created during expeditions. Unfortunately almost everything was either under glass or there was glare from the lighting, but here are a couple of examples:
The one above was painted on location in Africa by William Robinson Leigh as a study for a diorama painting. The watercolor below is one of a series done on location in Antarctica (I couldn’t read the name of the artist).
There are many rooms, all filled with art, artifacts and objects brought back from over 100 years worth of expeditions. The “Trophy Room” has been the subject of some controversy over the years, given today’s awareness of endangered species. But at one time expeditions were sent out by major museums like the American Museum of Natural History specifically to collect specimens for display. Hunting was viewed differently in those days. The mounts and skins in the room were donated in good faith and will probably stay where they are.
Here’s a corner in one room with a bucketful of spears and a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt, who was a member of the Club.
The weather took a twist on Friday afternoon with quite a snowstorm. New York City got close to 4″ in a fairly short time. It made getting around pretty interesting for this native coastal Californian.
Friday evening the festivities officially kicked off, snow or not, with a cocktail party on the hanger deck of the USS Intrepid, a WWll-era aircraft carrier, which is now a floating museum. I was having too much fun, plus trying to find some people who I knew had been to Mongolia, to take many photos, but here’s one of an Avenger. Its wings fold up so that more would fit on the carrier.
The next day my artist friend and colleague Alison Nicholls and I had time to go visit the Salmagundi Art Club, one of the oldest art clubs in the country, having been founded in 1871. We poked around the Library, checked out the newly and beautifully renovated main gallery space and enjoyed the original art hanging on the walls. There was still plenty of snow on the ground and Central Park was really lovely.
Saturday evening finally arrived and it was time to go to the American Museum of Natural History for the 111st Annual Dinner. It was pretty chilly but we stopped long enough so that Alison could get a photo of me at the museum entrance. I made a dress to go with a vest I brought back from last year’s trip to Mongolia and wore a pair of gold-stamped red leather Buryiat Mongol boots with upturned toes. I also carried a felt purse which was a gift from Ikh Nart Is Our Future, the women’s felt craft collective which I help support. It has an embroidered patch of the Ikh Nartiin Chuluu logo on it.
Inside, an old Explorer Club tradition was being carried on…serving what for westerners is extremely unusual and exotic food. There used to be an entire buffet, but now days it’s one dish. This year it was….tarantula meat in a kind of a casserole. No, I didn’t try it. I didn’t want to wait in line. But I did take a photo.
Also in the entry rotunda were two fossil dinosaur skeletons lit up in glowing purple. Quite a few of the attendees were wearing clothing from other countries, so I fit right in.
The before dinner gathering was in the famous African Hall. One really had to be there, but these will give you an idea of what it was like to party in one of the world’s great museums:
The pre-event announcements had said that we would be “dining under the blue whale” and they weren’t kidding. Here’s the view from our table in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. The lighting on the full-size model of the whale was almost unearthly. Appropriate for an ocean creature.
One of the main orders of business for the evening was the giving of awards and honors. Mendip Singh Soin, who is a good friend of Jan Wigsten, one of the partners who owns the tour company I work with, Nomadic Journeys (small world story), received a Citation of Merit. I had chatted with him the previous evening, so it was fun to see someone I’d met on on the podium.
The highest honor that the Explorers Club bestows, as I mentioned above, is the Explorers Medal. You can read the full list of previous recipients here. It is long and it is illustrious. And this year the honoree was *drum roll* Neil deGrasse Tyson.
We were way in the back of the room, but I managed to get a few photos of him giving his acceptance speech. And that concluded the formal program. Everyone, or at least it seemed so, adjourned back to the African hall for more merriment and visiting. We stayed to the very end and made our way out after midnight. And so ended my first-ever Annual Dinner. And I don’t plan for it to be my last!
But first, here’s a photo that I took from the plane as we flew over the Sierra Nevada mountains heading east from San Francisco. There should be nothing but white in this picture from top to bottom. There is no snow pack again this year, which means drought conditions will continue. A third of the state’s water from from winter snowfall in the Sierra Nevadas. There’s more info. here.
I’m now in New York at the Hotel Newton, getting ready to head over to The Explorers Club to poke and around and meet up with my host for the weekend, artist and Society of Animal Artists colleague Alison Nicholls. We’ll be going to the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut this afternoon and meeting up with artist and also Society of Animal Artists friend and colleague Sean Murtha, who works at the museum. Check out their websites by clicking on their names. I think you’ll enjoy seeing their work.
And finally, if you’re not familiar with The Explorers Club, of which I became a Fellow last April, you can find out more here. The Saturday night festivities will be live-streamed.
Just got back from a short trip to the San Francisco Bay Area. We stayed at the Doubletree near the Berkeley Marina, a dog-friendly hotel where we could walk along the waterfront. I have a new little Nikon Coolpix S6800 and the resident California ground squirrels were just the subjects I needed to try it out for wildife. It did pretty well. Lots of noise at full zoom, but definitely enough shutter speed to catch the little critters in good focus. Do they ever have a room with a view…
That’s the Golden Gate in the center on the horizon. San Francisco is to the left and Marin County to the right.
There were often three or more up on the rocks hanging around.
One doesn’t usually associate squirrels with large bodies of water, but the rocky edge along the bay creates perfect habitat. There’s an adjacent large park with an off-leash dog area where the squirrels can sit in the trees (even though they are “ground” squirrels) and blow raspberries at the canines.
This is the closest I could zoom without the photo getting really noisy, but it’s plenty close enough.
Otherwise, we had a lovely time visiting with family and doing some shopping. I cut my annual swath through the Dick Blick store for art supplies and picked up a few things at REI. We went to Rangoon Superstars for Burmese food one night, Party Sushi for Japanese the next night and finished up with Nepalese/Indian at Taste of the Himalayas. A stock-up stop at Trader Joe’s and we were ready to wend our way back up to Behind the Redwood Curtain. Where today it is raining for the first time since December. And now there are flood warnings through Friday night…
Susan Fox, American Artist 