For the past ten years I have created a holiday linocut (linoleum) print and given it out during Christmas. This has been a turning away from the pervasive commercialism of the holidays and creating something from the heart and by the hand. This year I sketched out designs before carving the final lino block.

The inspiration for this year’s print was an image that kept reappearing in my thoughts and journal pages. It stemmed from my summer’s visit to Portland, Oregon and the beautiful streamlined 1941 steam engine, a Southern Pacific GS-4 , numbered 4449. This engine I strongly connected with memories of my father and the time we spent chasing the engine on rail excursion across the Golden State and once were even passagers on an excursion from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

The iconic hood of 4449, which appeared in many sketches since seeing the engine for the first time again. The typhoon air horn on the upper right, was used to cut throught the thick coastal fog on the Coast Daylight’s route. 

The first field sketch I did of 4449 at the Oregon Heritage Railway Center in Portland. I knew that I wanted to do a linocut print featuring the unmistakable profile of this engine.

It took a few months to decide how to represent the engine in a wintery theme. In reality the engine, which was in service on the California Coast, was more likely to encounter a fog bank rather than a snow bank, but that’s why I have an artist license.

Relief printing is the opposite of field sketching. In the field there is a sense of spontaneity, of whimsy and surprise. With relief printing, everything is planned out and there is very little room for improvisation. And to top that, you have to think backwards. So it is a medium that takes patience, planning, and vision. 

Daylight in Winter. This was one of the first really polished sketches, with color, of the lino cut design.  With this sketch, I hit upon the element of the pine tree in the background.

This is a pre sketch with notation as I was finalizing my design before carving the lino block. You will notice that it sketched as it would look on the block, the engine going left to right. When the block is printed the image is reversed, the engine going from right to left.

The linoleum key block and the final hand tinted relief print (in watercolor) above. 

I finally took a great leap forward in my birding by purchasing a scope and tripod. This way I could  observe faraway birds without disturbing them, discern  minute feather patterns, and also it would allow me to sketch, hands-free, in the field.

Now it was time to field test the scope and I could think of no better place to use the scope than the country roads north of Highway 12 near Rio Vista. This area is collectively known as Robinson Road and is a hotspot for wintering raptors, burrowing owl,  and mountain plovers. This was the wide open openness that was made for scoping far off birds.

After scraping ice off my windscreen I headed north and rendezvoused with Dickcissel and Brown Creeper. It was one of the coldest mornings of the season and the sky was crisp and clear, a perfect day for the long view.

We arrived about an hour later and headed off 113 on Robinson Road. We scanned the fields to the north, trying to pick out the cryptic ground plover. A far off tawny bird caught my attention and I lined up my scope to capture the first bird to be seen through my new optics and it was a good one, a ferruginous hawk, Buteo regalis.

Our next target birds were mountain plover and rough-legged hawk. Robinson Road turned to the south and we willed a far off perched raptor to turn into a roughy but not even the scope could give a positive id.

The beautiful call of the western meadowlark was our constant soundtrack on Robinson Road.

Further down the road we had an outstanding  overhead view of a light adult ferruginous hawk that seemed to appear out of the warm winter sun.

To our right was a freshly plowed field, ideal habitat for mountain plover. The road turned to the south, keeping the field to the right. I saw a large group of birds on either side of a farming road that bisected the plowed field. A scope view revealed a large group of killdeer with horned lark and western meadowlark mixed in. This was a very good sign. I scanned to the left of the mixed killdeer flock and that’s when I got our target bird, a flock of about 30 mountain plover; a real ponderous of plover! We had great views of these birds whose entire population is estimated to be at 11,000 to 14,000 birds.

After watching the plovers disappear simply by turning their brown backs to us, thereby melting into the plowed field, we headed south to the intersection of Robinson and Flannery Roads. This intersection always produced burrowing owl. And without fail, Brown Creeper spotted one, crouching on a roadside berm. The scope revealed the owl’s piercing eyes and swivel head.

Heading west on Flannery the raptor activity increased with harriers, red-tails, and ferruginous. One bird, rising in circles above the road caught my attention. It turned towards me and its bold carpal patches screamed rough-legged hawk! Lifer for Dicksissel and Brown Creeper. A toast was in order!

That little dirt claude is the much sought after Robinson Road specialty, the poorly named, mountain plover. From a digiscope photo.

Two birds, ferruginous hawk and mountain plover, which where identified with the aid of the scope.

Before a journey, I use my journal to put the destination into existence.

On my winter break, I will be in the desert and one of the mystic locations that I will be visiting is the Salton Sea.

The Salton Sea is an accidental inland salt sea, the second largest in the United States after the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The “sea” is accidental because on a dam  and canal breaches in 19o5. The over flooded waters of the Colorado River filled into the Salton Sink to create the largest lake in California.

For a time this lake was a recreation destination with marinas, yacht clubs and hotels, but the lake has been receding and the waters, more polluted, leaving ghost towns ringing it’s shores.

The sea is currently a refuge for thousands of birds, including 400 different species and it was these birds that draws me an hour and a half south from Joshua Tree.

On Black Friday I headed west onto the Pacific Plate. I was seeing how far away from a Marin shopping mall I could get without leaving Marin County. I figured the Outer Point at Point Reyes National Seashore would be the place.

On my way out to the point, just after crossing from the North American Plate to the Pacific Plate, I stopped on the western shore of Tomales Bay at one of the “larger” towns in Point Reyes: Inverness. I pulled into the parking lot behind the general store. My subject was one of the “tourist attractions” of Inverness, the boat known as the SS Point Reyes. For over 50 years this fishing boat has been beached on a sandbar and has been attracting tourists, photographers, and artists ever since.

I continued on towards the lighthouse and Chimney Rock. I passed some of the historic cattle ranches along Sir Frances Drake Boulevard. Whenever I am in the area I always stop in at Historic Ranch B, also know as Mendoza Ranch. I walked up to the cypresses to see the local great horned owls. I easily found the pair and I sketched one of the roosting owls.

The Outer Point is a world famous birding location known for its rare fall migrants. 410 different species of birds have been found here. Most of the migrants had already passed through but highlights included: a pair of peregrines at the lighthouse, a rock wren near the lighthouse parking lot, a Say’s phoebe on the way out to Chimney Rock, and a barn owl that was flying well past it’s bedtime at Drakes Beach.

I went as far west as physically possible in Point Reyes while still remaining dry: the Point Reyes Lighthouse. I sketched the lighthouse while watching a pair of peregrines that where perched on the cliffs above the common murre colony. One lifted off and spiraled upwards and then headed east towards Chimney Rock. Like the wanderer, I too headed to Chimney Rock.

Looking out towards Chimney Rock, Drakes Bay, and the Pacific.

“I’ve been down the road and I’ve come back

Lonesome whistle on the railroad track”

-Neil Young – Mellow My Mind 

On a recent visit to Santa Cruz I decided to sketch the utterly mundane. The parts of the cityscape that most people ignore and are blind to. Things that, in some cases, are obsolete but still standing. So on one Friday morning I set out to sketch railway signs, and Santa Cruz has quiet a few.

These signs speak of a time when trains passed through town on the now closed branch lines. One line, known as the Suntan Special, once threaded it’s way through the Santa Cruz Mountains to Los Gatos and brought beach goers to the coast in the age before the automobile reigned supreme and another line headed out to Davenport to the now closed cement plant.

My father used to relate the memory from his childhood, of hearing a steam engine, working it’s way up the wet rails, just up the canyon from my cabin and how the driver wheels would spin out and the train would have to back down the grade, sanding the tracks, to make another attempt.

But today, on that same grade the tourist train dubbed Big Trees & Pacific now takes passangers on a motley consist from Felton to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and back again.  But really this lines goes nowhere, like an ocean going vessel on a landlocked reservior. 

Railway tracks speak of the romance of the rails, about hope, about hopping a freight to a new chapter, a new life. And the signs are still there, if you know where to look, and I do. 

Shortly after touchdown at Las Vegas International Airport, I had one destination on my mind and it wasn’t the Strip. I took the shuttle to the car rental center and 45 minutes later, I was on the road, my binoculars on the passenger seat, and I was heading to one of the best birding locations around Las Vegas: the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve.

I had two notoriously difficult birds on my wish list that I hoped to see at the birding center. Because of their secretive nature, crissal and Le Conte’s thrashers were a prize on any desert birding trip to the southwest.

On my arrival at the visitor center I was informed that Le Conte’s was not to be found here but crissal could be seen just beyond the fence on the other side of Pond 6.

The Birding Preserve is an oasis of 9 ponds in the desert, southeast of the Vegas Strip and directly east of the airport. I threaded my way out to the far side of Pond 6 and walked the fence line, looking for the secretive thrasher.

In a near bush I spotted a little mouse of a bird, seen in a pair, it was a desert gnatcatcher, the black-tailed gnatcatcher. Life bird number 506.

After watching the gnatcatchers, I scanned the brush for any sign of the thrasher and listening for their musical desert song. Then the thrasher appeared on top of a bush near the fence line and I had great looks of this fleeting enigma. It flew from bush to bush and I stayed with the bird for about ten minutes then I headed back to the visitor center, the preserve closed at 2:00 and I was warned that I would be locked in if I didn’t return in time. A roadrunner was a nice treat on my way out.

Life bird number 507, crissal thrasher (Toxostoma crissale).

Two lifers in Las Vegas was not a bad haul and the other lifer I could expect to find was in Zion National Park, two and a half hours away. This bird was not rare and unlike the thrashers, was very conspicuous and easy to see. Indeed this bird was “created” by the American Bird Association (ABA), as it was split from the western scrub-jay. All scrub-Jay’s were once considered one species but are now broken up as Western, Florida,  Island, and now Woodhouse’s.

I didn’t really look for Woodhouse’s, I just knew that eventually we would cross paths somewhere in Zion. This I did while returning from Emerald Pools on the Kayenta Trail. I later have better views of a different jay on the Pa ‘rus Trail. This jay looks exactly the same as the western but favors juniper over oaks and there is no range overlap in southern Utah. Easy lifer.

Woodhouse’s jay, life bird number 508.

I was going to try one more time for the elusive Le Conte’s thrasher. This involve getting up extremely early, and leaving Springdale by 6 AM, so I could make my 1 o’clock flight from Sin City (turns out the flight was delayed by two and half hours because of Bay Area weather). My destination was the entrance road to Corn Creek, north west of Las Vegas. This is a hotspot, according to ebird, for this species. I waited as an approaching thunderstorm bore down on me. I searched the brush that flanked the road, and I heard it’s contact call but I never saw the  ghostly pale phantasma of a bird. It just gives me a bird to look for on my trip to Joshua Tree during my winter break.

I may have heard a Le Conte’s thrasher at Corn Creek but the elusive bird was not seen, instead I was treated to one of nature’s masterpieces. Sun, rain, thunder, lighting, double rainbow.

One of the fauna highlights of Bryce Canyon National Park is the possibility of seeing North America’s fastest land animal: the pronghorn antelope. As I headed out to Rainbow Point I stopped to scan every roadside meadow to see if I could find a herd but with no luck.

On my way out of the park I stopped at the visitors center to ask a ranger about possible locations to see pronghorns. The ranger told me that he hadn’t seen any pronghorns in the park for three weeks and in the fall the antelopes head out of the park and sometimes can be seen from the highways near Bryce,  grazing with cattle.

So I stopped at the first field I came to, once I left the park. There were cattle grazing in the field and I walked over to the barbed wire fence to take a closer look. That’s when I spotted a pronghorn, although not one I really wanted to see.

The pronghorn that once was. Even in death, the pronghorn looks gracefully fast. 

I headed west on Highway 12 and stopped near the airport and again scanned the planes (no pun intended) for the Northern Hemisphere’s fastest land animal. No luck. I stopped at a few more locations in Red Canyon and the Dixie National Forest.  As I neared the intersection with highway 89, I spotted a lone pronghorn in the field to the south.

I pulled over and crossed the highway to take a closer look. That’s when I noticed that the pronghorn was not alone. Stretched off to the west were about 20 antelope, all of them looking towards the strange man looking at then. A new life mammal!

After watching the herd for 10 minutes I got into the car and headed south on 89, towards the east entrance to Zion National Park. Little did I know that I would soon seen another life mammal. This one would be much closer to the road than the skittish pronghorn antelope.

Just after entering Zion National Park,  Checkerboard Mesa looming off in the near distance, I headed toward the mesa vista point. A line of tan animals appeared on the left side of the road, threading their way down to the mesa. They looked like large, pale capybaras, but with horns. What on earth were these creatures?

A herd of bighorns attack a helpless bush on the road side of the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway.

I pulled over and was surprised to see a herd of desert bighorn sheep descending on a bush at the base of Checkerboard Mesa.

The were about 15 sheep in the herd and a few worked their way up the road bank to almost within touching distance.  There was another herd on the other side of Checkerboard Mesa and this group included a ram. 

On my last full day in southern Utah, I lit out of Zion on the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway, heading in a northern eastern bearing. My destination was Bryce Canyon National Park.

“Otherworldly” is an adjective often used to describe the landscapes of Bryce Canyon. Over a long period of geologic time of freezes, thaws, and erosion, the sandstone and limestone pillars known as hoodoos, were formed.

I wanted to get up close and personal with some of these hoodoos, so I got out of my car and left the vista point at Sunset Point and hiked the Navajo Loop Trail. There among the hoodoos and alien moonscapes I perched on the edge of the trail (trying not to drop my sketchbook and/or pen) and sketched Bryce’s most emblematic hoodoo, “Thor’s Hammer”. I let the form of “Thor’s Hammer” stand unpainted as I painted in the background with a loose wet-on-wet wash.

After my hike I returned to my car and headed south on the Bryce Canyon Scenic Drive toward Rainbow Point. As I passed the many vista points along the way I realized that Bryce was a Winnebago Warrior type of National Park. That means it is full of big cars, trucks, and campers that see the park from the road. They spill out of their RV, walk 15 yards to the scenic vista point, take a few pictures, and return to their RV and drive off to the next vista point.

I met a group of these Winnebago Warriors at Rainbow Point. I stopped to admire one of my favorite birds, a raven that was perched near the vista point, quietly quocking to the hoodoos. I recorded the dialogue with a lady:

Tourist: What kind of bird is that?

Sketcher: Common Raven.

Tourist: So you think it’s a raven?

Sketcher: No, I know that it’s a raven.

Tourist: (To her friend) It’s just a raven. You don’t need to take a picture.

This conversation seemed so different from Zion where a lecture on Ravens was being advertised on the Park’s bulletin boards. The talk, which featured a reading of Poe’s poem, “The Raven”, was being held on an auspicious date, October 31st, Halloween at the Zion Lodge.

 

 

One of my constant companions on my walks along the Virgin River and into the Narrows was the American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus). On purely external appearances this just looks like a dumpy, drab, short-tail bird that flies like a sinking piece of lead but sketching and birding forces you to stop and notice.

I can watch this aquatic song bird for hours as it bobs up and down along the river bank, floats like a leaf downstream, and disappears under the turbulent waters of the Virgin. On one hike up the River Walk Trail I paused at the sound of the whistles and trills of a dipper song, rising above the sound of the river. I finally located the juvenile bird, perched on a branch, close to the water. I sat near, the only audience member to one of nature’s concerts. Here is how John Muir described the song of the dipper:

The more striking strains are perfect arabesques of melody, composed of a few full, round, mellow notes, embroidered with delicate trills which fade and melt in long slender cadences. In a general way his music is that of the streams refined and spiritualized. The deep booming notes of the falls are in it, the trills of rapids, the gurgling of margin eddies, the low whispering of level reaches, and the sweet tinkle of separate drops oozing from the ends of mosses and falling into tranquil pools.

As I was listening to the dipper, many people passed on the trail, none pausing or noticing the wonderful music emanating from one of Zion’s most amazing creatures. I then composed a short poem, really just the same poem that I have composed before, only the words were different. The gist of the theme can be summed up as: People in nature, shame on you for not noticing.

The always enjoyable dipper on the banks of the Virgin River, Zion National Park.

In all the majesty and marvel of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Yosemite, John Muir focused his attention and writing this small, drab bird, which he called the water-ouzel. He writes so poetically about this bird in The Mountains of California:

He is the mountain streams’ own darling, the humming-bird of blooming waters, loving rocky ripple-slopes and sheets of foam as a bee loves flowers, as a lark loves sunshine and meadows. Among all the mountain birds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings, –none so unfailingly.

A field sketch of the juvenile dipper, singing on it’s perch above the Virgin River.