Author: corvidsketcher

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Mercer Caverns

There was a time our 5th graders attended the Sierra Outdoor School (SOS) near Sonora for outdoor education. Before they arrived to do the Duffle Shuffle at their new digs, they headed over to Murphys to do some spelunking at Mercer Caverns, so I thought I wouldn’t mind heading 16 stories underground.

This cavern system is not for the faint of heart, the exceedingly tall, or the claustrophobic.

It was “discovered” by its namesake Walter Mercer. Why the quotes? Well native Californians knew of the cavern’s existence at least 1,500 years ago and native remains were found in the caverns.

But on September 1, 1885, Mercer chanced upon the caverns in a search for water. He failed as a gold miner but struck pay dirt with this discovery. Here he was mining the tourists and thrill seekers.

A young stalactite grows slowly, very slowly.

Our guided tour lasted about 45 minutes and luckily I only hit my head once (near the exit).

It was also near the exit that Mercer took a big fall when his rope failed and he fell 30 feet. The fall killed him, it just took twelve years to do so. The fall caused injury to his neck and back and this later led to tuberculosis of the spine. He finally died from his fall on November 1, 1900. Mercer was 46 years old.

While I could not bring my sketchbook into the caverns, I was able to sketch the shack near the entrance. And there was a seated shelter to protect my sketch from the drizzle. This provided the anchor of the sketch.

Some older stalactites.
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Rainy Murphys Sketches

As my Gold Country Spring Break trip neared, rain (and snow flurries) were forecast from Sunday to Tuesday.

This throws a wrench into my sketching plans in my base camp of Murphys. Sketching with rain smears your efforts into a soggy mess. No matter. I would just use my waterproof, movable, sketching blind, ie my car!

I definitely had the historic Murphys Hotel on my sketch-list. Main Street in Murphys is a very busy place (especially on weekends) so arrived early in morning while visitors were sleeping off their wine induced stupors.

I easily found a spot across the street for a rainy day sketch of this Gold Country landmark. I pulled out my journal and began my sketch (featured sketch).

Street shamrocks adorns three intersections on Murphys’ Main Street.

While exploring the side streets of Murphys, I came upon the Murphys’ 1850 schoolhouse.

The rain taps were opened so I found a parking spot and sketched the profile of the school. I normally might have sketched the structure head on but because of the rain I was forced to sketch the school from a perspective I might not have considered.

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Calaveras Big Trees Redux

I returned with my sketchbook (a different sketchbook of course) to the North Grove Trail at Calaveras Big Tress State Park.

It was a Saturday in late March and the park was packed! The further along the trail I traveled, the less people there were.

Standing under a giant sequoia is a thing of beauty and wonder. And a great way to get a stiff neck.

I wanted to sketch the Mother of the Forest. This tree represent the human greed at it’s worst and human desire to exploit nature for profit. In 1854 the sequoia’s bark was stripped off in eight foot lengths. The bark was reassembled and displayed in New York and London, for profit of course.

Without the tree’s outer armor, the tree died. To some 19th century observers, this sparked outrage and people began to understand that these living giants needed to be protected and this shift in thinking gave rise to the redwood protection movement in California. And is the reason these trees are protected today.

These Sequoia specimens were given names and this is the base of the Lincoln Tree, named after the Great Emancipator.

I picked a sketching spot against a shed-sized boulder near marker number 18 and started a sketch that looked into the grove (featured sketch). The view sketched is looking into the heart of the grove where the large trees can be from 800 to 3,000 years old! I included a group of four for scale.

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The Red Buildings of Tuolumne County

There are three prominent red buildings I wanted to sketch in Tuolumne County in the towns of Sonora and Jamestown.

My first stop was Jamestown and Railtown 1897 State Historic Park.

The State Park includes the freight depot and the roundhouse and turntable of the Sierra Railroad. Housed inside the roundhouse are four of the railroad’s steam locomotives.

One or two of the locomotives are still active and operate on weekends in the summer months. None is more famous than Sierra No. 3.

Three of my favorite No. 3 films are: High Noon, Man of the West, and Unforgiven.

After sketching the roundhouse, I sketched the freight depot, which is now the visitors center and gift shop. This building was featured at the beginning of Anthony Mann’s Man of the West (1958). This is one of Gary Cooper’s last westerns and the last featuring Sierra No. 3 in a Cooper film. Their most famous film was the classic High Noon (although they never appeared in the same scene).

The freight depot. The passenger depot burned down on Thanksgiving Day 1978.

A few days later, I wanted to sketch one of the most photographed churches in the entire Gold Country, which is to be found in the town of Sonora.

This is St. James’ Episcopal Church (1859) also known as The Red Church. The church is build of redwood in a Carpenter Gothic style.

Getting a good sketching perspective was tough because number one, it was raining outside and I needed to do a car sketch yet I couldn’t find parking with an unobstructed view of the church looking up Highway 49. So I found a great perspective from the second story of the parking structure, looking down on the church (featured sketch).

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Coulterville and Whistling Billy

On my Spring Break Gold Country sketch list was an eight ton wood burning narrow gauge steam locomotive that was shipped around the Horn and delivered to Coulterville in 1887.

The locomotive operated on a four mile line hauling car loads of gold quartz ore from the Mary Harrison Mine just south of Coulterville to a stamp mill. Billy was abandoned in 1904 but was later refurbished and put on static display in the 1930s, where it remains today.

This is the pride and joy of Coulterville. Whistling Billy is displayed across Highway 49 from the Hotel Jeffery under the shade of the town’s hanging tree.

The Hotel Jeffery. While the building still stands the business is closed. Notable lodgers include: President Theodore Roosevelt (on his way to tour Yosemite), John Muir, and Mark Twain. Like most historic hotels in the Gold Country, this one is supposedly haunted.
Whistling Billy in beautiful Gold Country Spring sunshine.

I did two sketches of the diminutive locomotive each featuring the hanging tree.

Sketch number one.
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Birds of Sydney: Parrots

In my neighborhood you occasionally see posters tacked up on a power poles about missing animals, mostly dogs or cats but sometimes parrots that have flown away from their gilded cages.

The only parrots seen flying in my neighborhood are escapees. Exotics in a strange land.

Parrots, especially macaws, Amazons, cockatoos, and budgerigars, are some of the most recognizable birds species in the world because they are often pets. They frequently appear in media such as books, art, and movies. Show just about anybody an image of psittacines and they will say “parrot”.

My sixth grade class pet was a budgie (native to Australia). My grandma also had a budgie before I was born. Macaws and cockatoos are mainstays at zoos and animal parks where they frequently perform at shows showing off their intelligence, dexterity, and vocal abilities.

Just last year, an organization, Happy Birds, had an assembly at my school that was a parrot show featuring a very vocal Amazon and some macaws, including the largest parrot in the world: the hyacinth macaw.

A few summers before the parrot assembly I saw the beautiful big blue macaw in the Pantanal in Brazil. This is a wild and free hyacinth macaw.

The first time I saw a free flying wild macaw (scarlet macaw) was in Costa Rica. I saw many more on birding trips to Ecuador and Brazil.

It was so unreal to see a pair of scarlet macaws flying in Costa Rica without thinking they had just escaped from a nearby zoo.

Macaws on the wing in Brazil.

Seeing these iconic parrots flying free over a rainforest, proclaiming themselves with their raucous hymns is an unforgettable natural experience.

If looking at this a photo one thinks it is taken at a zoo but no, this is a wild blue and yellow macaw in the Pantanal in Brazil.

Now I turn to the county of Australia and it’s “escaped” parrots of Sydney. The most iconic for me are the sulphur-crested cockatoo and the rainbow lorikeet (featured sketch). Both are common in the Emerald City.

My Australian mate (a former student’s parent) and a former Sydney resident told me about seeing the iconic sulphur-crested cockatoo almost everyday simply blew my birding brain making me want to go Down Under to see them for myself.

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March 25, 1932

Today would have been my dad’s 93rd birthday.

He left us almost 10 years ago. I chose to sketch one of my favorite objects I have: his Motorman’s hat.

On a recent visit to the Western Railway Museum, where my dad was a volunteer motorman, I bought a copy of a dvd about the museum called “Ride Through History”.

The dvd is narrated by rail enthusiast and Bay Area Radio Hall of Famer Fred Krock and follows Peninsular Railway No. 52 as it rides around the museum and on to the former Sacramento Northern tracks.

Car 52 rides out to the end of the line at Bird’s Landing Road (about six miles) and then changes ends to head back to the museum.

As the car heads back, there is an over the shoulder shot of the motorman and the rails ahead that reach out to the horizon. The man in the foreground is my dad!

There is a special feeling of joy and sadness upon seeing my father doing something he loved but also the finality of his passing.

A photo I took of my dad, the streetcar motorman.

In remembrance, I sketched his hat and a still from the dvd.

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The Jensen Carhouse

On Saturday I headed out to the Western Railway Museum, and I was hoping that they had enough volunteers to open the Jensen Carhouse.

The impressively large carhouse was built between 2004 and 2008 at an expense of $2.5 million. The indoor storage facility is the most ambitious project the museum has ever undertaken. It allows some of the museum’s vintage cars, locomotives, and streetcars to be stored and protected from the sun, rain, and wind of Solano County.

The only problem: if they do not have enough volunteers, the carhouse does not open to the public.

On my past two visits, the doors remained locked and closed.

The six bays of the Jenson Carhouse.

This Saturday, the carhouse would be open! And I had a few residents that I wanted to sketch!

The number one resident I wanted to sketch was the Western Pacific 4-6-0 steam locomotive No. 94.

Two ends of the transit spectrum: steam and electric. Western Pacific’s No. 94 and Sacramento Northern’s No. 652.

Western Pacific 94 was built by American Locomotive Company in 1909. The twenty locomotives in this class were used for passenger service. WP was an early adopter of diesel power and steam ended on the WP in April of 1953. 94 was kept for excursion service. The locomotive was last operated on August 22, 1960 when it was on point of the California Zephyr between Niles and Oakland as part of the 50th anniversary of the passenger service. 94 was donated to the museum in 1979.

The next piece of transit history I sketched was the newly arrived BART legacy A Unit No. 1164. Three units were delivered to the museum in October of 2024 and are now stored in the Jensen Carhouse. BART went into service September 11, 1972 and the original legacy fleet was retired after 52 years of service. The three units donated to WRM have logged more than 15 million miles while in service.

No. 94 seems to dwarf the BART A Unit.

The last denizen I sketched in the carhouse is perhaps my favorite. It is San Francisco’s MUNI PCC car No. 1016. This PCC was built in 1951 by the St. Louis Car Company as part of the last batch of PCCs built in the United States.

I have always loved the rounded streamlined design of PCC cars and the green and cream livery is my favorite paint scheme. This livery was developed in 1946 and features the MUNI wings.

MUNI’s famous wings on K-type car No. 178. This car type is affectionately known as an “iron monster”.
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Birds of Sydney: Tawny Frogmouth

In anticipation of my Aussie Adventure I wanted to do an individual species spread about some of the iconic Australian birds that can be found in the urban environs in the Emerald City: Sydney, Australia.

One reason that Sydney’s moniker is the Emerald City is because of its many green parks, over 400, in fact. It’s in these many parks such as the Royal Botanic Gardens and Centennial Park, that these birds can be found.

Some of the birds of Australia seem to come out of the realm of fantasy and fiction like some creature that was designed on an artist’s drafting board, that can only be found in the pages of a book not perched in that tree in Centennial Park.

The bird that tops this list has to be the tawny frogmouth (Podargus strigoides). The scientific name roughly translates to gouty (swollen) owl-like bird.

The frogmouth however, is not closely related to owls but related to oilbirds, potoos, and nightjars nor are they suffering from gout.

I have previous seen potoos in Central and South America. And they certainly seemed out of this world.

Look closely, this is a common potoo (Nyctibius griseus) and a chick from a trip to Ecuador in 2018. Where does stump end and birds begin? This cryptic behavior is called stumping.

Looking at images of the tawny frogmouth reminds me of a Muppet, perhaps of the Fraggle Rock epoch.

I added this observation to the left side of my spread with a cross section of a gum tree with a puppeteer inside, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jim Henson.

I’ll admit, I let my mind run free and my artistic license has yet to expire!

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China Camp Loop

As spring was approaching and a late rain expected during the week I decided to head out on a Saturday morning to Marin County and China Camp State Park.

I started my hike across the street from the Turtle Back Trail. I would be heading along the Shoreline Trail towards the ranger station. I originally thought I’d reach the ranger station and then return along the Shoreline Trail back to the trailhead.

The trail parallels San Pedro Road and turns south around Miwok Meadows, giving me a bit of relief from the cars on San Pedro. Here, I really felt like I was in the wilderness, despite the graded trail and wooden bridges. The forest was alive with bird song: Bewick’s wren, spotted towhee, and dark-eyed juncos.

As I came around the eastern edge of the meadow, I saw an oak crowned with a white jewel like a Christmas tree.

The angel on top of the tree, a killer angel, was a white- tailed kite pulling apart breakfast.

I then reached the junction with the Oak Ridge Trail. This is where I planned to turn back but I felt good, the weather was beautiful, and I wanted new scenery on the return loop.

I unpacked and assembled my trekking poles, removed an outer layer, and started my climb up to the ridge.

After a few switchbacks and glimpses of San Pablo Bay, I reached the top ridge looking out towards Peacock Gap and the Richmond San Rafael Bridge.

Near the summit at the intersection of the Oak Ridge Trail and the McNears Fire Trail.

I continued on, the trail exposed to the late winter sun. I soon came to the junction of the Bay View Trail, which would bring me to Back Ranch Campground and then my car at Turtle Back Hill.

I dipped back down into leafy shade and despite the trails’s name, there were fleeting views of the bay through trees and foliage.

There’s a bit of the bay from the Bay View Trail!

After returning to my car, two hours and 25 minutes after I started (not bad for 6.5 miles), I drove down San Pedro Road to check and sketch the progress of the osprey’s nest.

The early stages of nest building on February 22. The updated progress is sketched in my spread for the featured sketch.