On a riverside rock I noticed a black and blue damselfly. I later found out it was a vivid dancer (what a name). The dancer perched horizontally on the rock with wings held parallel to it abdomen, dragonflies hold their wings at a 90 degree angle from their body.
If I thought sparrows (little brown jobs), gulls, and peeps (shorebirds) were hard to identify then putting a species name or even a genus to a dragon or damselfly is supremely daunting!
It felt good to be a novice again.
I started a spread anchored in the bottom left corner by a sketch of the river rocks and the damselfly perched on one of them. The black and blue wonder spent a lot of its time sallying forth and chasing away other damselflies (I assume it was of the same species) like a hummingbird guarding its patch of flowers.
A bit of blue amongst the green.
I traced out the damselfly’s path and its return to the same rock perch.
Through sketching, I learn and on the top of the spread I drew the anatomy of a damselfly.
The eyes of the damselfly are massive in proportion to its body. These aerial hunters have excellent eyesight.
Now if I could only identify the large black and yellow dragonfly cruising above my head. I’m hoping it’s the western river cruiser (Macromia magnifica).
Lazy afternoons in August found me sitting in my Crazy Creek chair, feet in the San Lorenzo, sucking on some suds, and reading John D. McDonald’s Cape Fear.
I love being surrounded by nature. It is really a sensory sweater with the sound of the river over rocks just upstream and the rattle of the belted kingfisher. Splashes of color fill my view, the flash of the said kingfisher passing by, inches off the water and the vibrant dragonflies and butterflies patrolling the shore.
And there is a feel of the cool river water running over my feet and the sweeping brush of the crawdad’s antennas followed by an exploratory pinch.
Crayfish investigating my foot. (I’m not dead yet!)
Watching the reflection from f the river play across the far bank inspired me to poetry. I included the poem on the left hand side of the spread.
One of the stranger sights in the Isla Santa Cruz town of Puerto Ayora is at the Charles Darwin Research Station. It is not one of the many living tortoises living there but a nonliving piece of taxidermy.
There is one tortoise that was a world wide celebrity, his passing was covered around the world. He is an endling, the very last of his subspecies, Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii. His name is Solitario George (Lonesome George).
George was found in 1971 on the small island of Isla Pinta (23 square miles). The island’s vegetation had been decimated by introduced feral goats. He was the last of his subspecies ever found and moved to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz.
The research station preserves and breeds giants tortoises and works on conservation to protect their habitats around the Galapagos.
A young tortoise breed at the center will one day be released to its home island.
George lived at the center for 40 years, being cared for by Fausto Llerena. Being the last of his kind, he was a popular attraction at the center.
After George was found dead, he was sent to New York to be preserved by the Museum of Natural History.
He was then sent back to Ecuador where there was a fight as to where he would be displayed: Quito or the Galápagos. In the end, the Galápagos won and George is now on Isla Santa Cruz.
“It is a hideous-looking creature, of dirty black colour, stupid and sluggish in its movements”
–Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle
While there is much attention and focus on the endemic avian fauna of the Galápagos we should not forget the unique reptiles of the Enchanted Islands.
One of the reptiles that I was really looking forward to seeing was the world’s only aquatic lizard: the marine iguana.
Now this is the iguana that, without fail, features in any nature documentary about the Galápagos.
The marine iguana, as the name implies, is at home to the coastal salt waters of the Pacific. They are only found in the Galápagos Islands.
While I have seen a green iguana in Belize swimming across a stream, its distant relative spends much more time in the tides of the Pacific foraging underwater for sea vegetation.
The large marine iguana statue at Floreana.
We had many encounters with marine iguanas on the different islands that we visited. Like the birds of the Galápagos, they show no fear of humans. Our guide told us to be careful and not step on an iguana. They certainly do not move out of the way when approached.
Marine iguanas spent a lot of time out of the water sunning themselves in between foraging for seaweed. A loose sketch from one of my photos of a group of iguanas warming up.The marine iguanas cover the lava. They are cold-blooded and foraging in the cold Humboldt Current of the Galápagos means they need to huddle together to warm up.
While the Nemo III was anchored off the small Galapagos island of Santa Fe I sat at the stern and panted the landscape before me with the panga in the foreground.
The Galápagos is famous for its very drab but diverse (in beak size) finches. They are rather mistakenly called Darwin’s Finches.
Large ground-finch on Genovesa.
In 1835, Darwin famously only spent five weeks in the Galápagos visiting only four of the islands (I visited nine).
“Darwin’s finches” was never a phrase coined by Darwin himself but his writings in the Voyage of the Beagle and Origin of Species really put the Galápagos and it’s finches on the scientific map.
Throughout the islands you will see many statues or paintings of Charles Darwin in many ages of his life. He was in his mid twenties when he visited the Galápagos.
I did a continuous line sketch of one of the statues in San Cristobal with a finch on his shoulder. (The finch was not real but part of the statue.) The statue stands with hand extended as if he is offering to shake your hand. Behind him is a model of the Beagle, looking more like a play structure you might find in a fast food restaurant.
The silly statue of Darwin on San Cristobal with one of his famous finches on his shoulder.An example of Darwin as an older man at the Charles Darwin Research Station.
In the excellent Pulitzer Prizewinning book The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner, the author tells the story of Peter and Rosemary Grant and the long term study of the finches of a small Galápagos island. Through their multi-decade research (measuring finch beak size) they are able to witness evolution in action.
I was most excited to see this small island that can’t be visited by the general public: Daphne Major. This is where the Grants did their groundbreaking research that changed our understanding of evolution.
For my spread of the finches, I sketched two of my favorites: the vegetarian and the tool using woodpecker finch. Both sketches are based on my photos.
On a Friday morning we visited one of the most pristine beaches in all the Galapagos: Bahia Gardner.
As our panga arrived, we were greeted by a seal lion in the surf who was between us and our chosen landing site. Here sealions rule the beach!
We walked up the beach and were greeted by the other ambassadors of Bahia Gardener: the Espanola mockingbird.
These mockingbirds aren’t hard to find because they find you. They readily approach beach visitors, inspecting your shoes or sandals. If you set your pack down it will be surrounded by mockingbirds, pecking at pockets and straps.
A mockingbird about to nutmeg Dave.
There were a fair number of Galapagos sea lions hauled out on the beach. Plenty of relatively stable subjects in repose to sketch.
I walked the beach adding sea lions to my spread (featured sketch).
On my Hawaii/Australia adventure I took a total of six flights so it left me with plenty of time to do some airport sketching. A perfect way to spend time while waiting to board. Or a perfect way to spend time if you’re really bored!
I did a total of nine sketches, some of which I have included here.
I always enjoy the art in airports. My home airport, SFO, frequently changes what’s on show.
Most of the time I focus on the scene outside the window of planes parked at the gates. But at the airport in Cairns (Gateway to the Great Barrier Reef) I sketched some of the fish sculptures hanging from the ceiling (all rendered in a continuous-line sketch).
You can’t be in Cairns (pronounced “cans”) without heading out to the natural wonder that is the Great Barrier Reef.
I chose a trip on the Ocean Spirit to Michaelmas Cay, a sandy island on the reef.
While I am a certified SCUBA diver and I love marine life, I was here for the birds.
I checked in and walked out to the dock under a light, warm drizzle. It rains almost everyday in Cairns. I was early so I headed to the breakwater to try to pick up a lifer.
I scanned the nearby trees for roosting birds, I was looking for a night-heron. I found one foraging at the breakwater. I guess no one told it that it was a night-heron, a Nankeen night-heron.
I headed back to the dock and boarded the Ocean Spirit.
While waiting for the Ocean Spirit to depart I sketched the mountains to the south and the boats moored in the foreground.
During the two hour cruise to the cay, we stopped to look at a few humpback whales.
This is a continuous-line sketch of the Ocean Spirit looking towards the bow as we head to the cay.
We arrived at the cay and anchored to the buoy. The launch began to take snorkelers to the sandy cay.
I headed over and walked on the vibrant sands. The cay is a bird sanctuary and various pelagic birds nest and roost here. The most prominent breeding bird at this time of year is the brown booby.
This a semi-regular vagrant to the west coast of California but I had never seen one this close and in it breeding plumage. I sketch one on it sandy nest (featured sketch).
The top birding site in the Australian State of Queensland is the Cairns Esplanade.
The esplanade is a path that runs north to south along the water with parks and trees bordering to the west. This path is popular with joggers, bikers, and dog walkers, as well as birders from around the world.
When the tide is right, many waders feed close in on the exposed tidal flats but there are always birds to be found foraging in the trees.
With the following sketches I highlight a few of the species I encountered on the Esplanade. While none of these species are rare or Esplanade specialties, they are birds that grabbed my attention.
Ever since seeing woodswallows in my Australian bird guide I knew I wanted to see them, primarily because of an interesting behavior. My guide reads, “compulsively social when loafing or roosting, often settling in tight rows on branches to sleep or to preen themselves or each other”. There are six species of woodswallow in Oz, these were white-breasted.
While in Australia I added seven species of kingfisher to my world list including the world’s largest kingfisher, the laughing kookaburra. I added my last species of kingfisher on my final day in Cairns birding the northern Esplanade.
In my bird guide it is known as the collared kingfisher but is now known as the Torrisian kingfisher. Named for the Torres Strait which is the body of water separating Queensland and New Guinea.
I had missed this larger kingfisher on two other visits. The most common kingfisher on the tidal flats and in the trees was the wonderfully named scared kingfisher.
On my last pass I found two Torrisans perched in trees near the water. They were both calling and having me stunning looks in the morning light!
The final bird that I am highlighting is perhaps the most common and as one bird guide notes, “widespread and well-loved”. And I certainly loved my encounters with the Willie wagtail.
The wagtail seems to relish being in the presence of humans. While I was walking across a lawn at the northern end of the esplanade, a Willie wagtail flew up to me and landed close. The bird followed me as I traversed the grass and I realized the wagtail was using me like the cattle egret uses cattle, as a way to scare up bugs from underfoot.
I had experienced this behavior once before, as I was being followed Wunce by a barn, swallow, while I was crossing a soccer pitch.
