Monday, May 17, 2010

Seven Birds a Week

In addition to the many birds that come around every day (wrens, finches, titmice, sparrows, chickadees, jays, mourning doves, etc.), the Lynch feeders welcomed a bunch of new birds this past week. Here is the new bird roll call, with bird drawings by yours truly:


The Baltimore oriole came to the feeder within an hour after I put out some sliced orange.


This young turkey has been wandering around the yard in the early hours. They really do look like velociraptors!


The grosbeak is one of my favorite birds. Love the bold red chest stripe.




The flycatcher appeared last week and hunts the backyard for bugs.



The evening grosbeak looks like a goldfinch on steroids. Our New Hampshire hills are a temporary stop for this Canadian-bound bird.


And, flying over the house, from stream to lake, every day, a great blue heron in the sky.

Drawn freehand with a thick stinky sharpie on typing paper, with color added with brush and watercolor.

5 comments:

John R. Platt said...

Love these.

We get some amazing birds here on the coast of Maine. Never a dull feathered friend.

RoB said...

Wow!

I am very impressed with the style and color of the drawings. Wonderful, lively lines; it reminds me of how Schulz and Waterson talked about liking to draw from nature. Are all cartoonists secretly nature illustrators?

David said...

These are really neat Mike!

Mike Lynch said...

I use those kids' watercolors -- the ones that you buy in the dimestore with a cheap brush. You can get some great colors out of them for only $2.99 or so. I learned this from my pal and cartoonist extraordinaire Don Orehek, who uses the Woolworth watercolor "dots" for all his Playboy color finishes!

Mike Lynch said...

Thanks, once again, for your kind words. I really just drew these for fun, but I am getting emails about them and people are putting them on their blogs. Thanks so much. I'm surprised and please that people like these.

And just these past few days, there have been some new birds: indigo bunting, red-wing blackbird (which I've NEVER seen up here on the wooded ridge), and a threesome of noisy grackles.