The Saracen's Head

Ten Days Old

Today's daily checking of the box was very noisy...

Five little pipsqueaks have grown into ravenous monsters!

The five bluebird babies are all doing just dandy- eyes are wide open and pinfeathers have poked their way out. The mouths are huge. A bump against the birdhouse pole or a wiggling finger above them sets them screaming and makes their long necks come reaching up as high as they can! (See the hole right below the eye on the bird on the left? That's his ear.)

This one of the smaller babies got shoved to the edge of the nest with an arm and a leg hanging out. He flapped his way back in, displaying his three rows of blue pins. The new feathers are starting to come out in little white tufts.

As you can see, the feathers don't sprout all over. Rather they grow from patches and when they are full-grown will be fluffy enough to cover the whole bird.

The other babies are in a waiting position

Ready to spring!

I love baby bluebirds.

L.G.T.

Needle and thREAD

To-day I am joining Mrs. Foss in needle and thREAD, about what you're sewing and what you're reading.

I don't sew very often at all, but yesterday being Kateri's birthday, I made her a set of handkerchiefs. They're each decorated with 'free-motion' butterflies, stitched on the machine. I like this technique 'cause it's just like doodling on fabric.

I am reading two books I received for my birthday from Mother (who knows what I like best, of course). Baby Bird Portraits by George Miksch Sutton and Sandhill and Whooping Cranes, both written by Paul A. Johnsgard. Baby Bird Portraits is full of such lifelike watercolours of little birds, many painted right from live subjects. The artist George Sutton frequently raised young birds to study and paint.

I like to sit and feast on the paintings. You can practically hear his fledglings cheep. There's nothing quite like discovering a good watercolour bird artist.

The text by P. Johnsgard is good too. He tells such funny stories about his ornithology students.

Sandhill and Whooping Cranes is about my newest birds-that-I'm-obsessed-with. I like it very much as it gives all sorts of information about which cranes and subspecies live where and migrate where else. It has a whole tantalizing appendix on 'Where to See Cranes'.

Now, here's something: George Sutton the artist knew Louis Fuertes, another Very Famous artist, who I learned about in Birdology and whose paintings are on a poster in my room. Sutton also visited to Hawk Mountain, and is connected with Maurice Broun, whose book Hawks Aloft I read all the time. Also, he knew Johnsgard, who knew George Archibald, co-founder of the International Crane Foundation, who I talk about all the time, being obsessed with cranes.

So many of my favorite familiar bird people are all tied up together!

Well, that is my needle and thREAD, and thank you Mrs. Foss for hosting. It's jolly.

Posted by L.G.T.

Hatch-Day!

Around 5:30 p.m., April 17. After thirteen days of incubation, it was late afternoon of the day before the hatching-day. One or two of the five eggs in our bluebird box showed the faintest dent.

3:59 p.m., April 18th Almost a whole day later, every egg is cracking. Three have tiny holes.

5:51 About two hours later, the first hatchling is not yet dry but already his eggshell has been taken away by mother or father.

6:38 Number One is looking bigger and fluffier, Two has just gotten out and is very weak. Three can be seen through his pipping hole; the smallest of peeps come from inside the egg. Note One's egg tooth in fine view.

7:00 Twenty-two minutes later, Three struggles to escape the shell, hindered by the continual flopping of One's head onto his neck. Whistling a soft note causes One and Two to gape blindly, not yet knowing what their mother really sounds like.

7:28 Finally Three has bungled his way to the top. The last two eggs have more cracking than before, but no holes yet.
Enough! No more sending Pa bluebird flying from his lookout in consternation today, or making Ma bluebird circle in a frenzy of chattering above my head. Dark will set in soon. Maybe another hatch-day tomorrow...

Update: April 19th, 9:55 a.m. All five are out of the egg and piled up in the bottom of the nest!

The newest is in front with his down in damp strings.
L.G.T.

WORK IN PROGRESS TUESDAY: Helm's Deep

Last Wednesday I started this picture of Helm's Deep. Book three (in the Two Towers) is prolly my favorite part of Lord of the Rings, and Helm's Deep is undoubtedly my favorite chapter of the Two Towers. So naturally that's what I decided to draw when I took it into my head to draw a huge picture.

Being 28.5 by 22.5, it is the largest picture I've ever drawn. This is me working on the floor: I start most pictures by drawing first in pencil, then I 'Pen it in', then I color it in with coloured pencils.

In the right corner are Aragorn and Eomer leading a sortie:

"This is the hour when we draw swords together!" 

The two swords flashed from the sheath as one. "Guthwinê!" cried Eomer," Guthwinê for the Mark!"

" Anduril!" cried Aragorn," Anduril for the Dúnadan!"

Don't I draw ugly orcs? (Not as ugly as Alan Lee's, though....)(As a matter of fact, my orcs are a cross between Ted Nasmith orcs and Alan Lee orcs)."These orcs are not FROM Mordor."

" WE ARE THE FIGHTING URUK HAI! WE DO NOT STOP FOR NIGHT OR DAY!"

These are wild men climbing up the wall: I've never drawn wild men before, so it is a new experience. One of them is falling off the wall and making horrible faces of vengeance as he clings desperately to the gate.

So, that is that. I'll have to post more pictures when I'm done, but at present I haven't even finished sketching it in!

Namarie! Nai hiruvalye Valimar. Nai elye hiruva. Namarie!

posted by Mary Rose