Rustling Caterpillars

My biggest event of the year at Amelia SanJon Gallery is always the same weekend as the Concours d' Elegance Car Show.  This year I have invited one of Jacksonville's finest artists, Leigh Murphy, American Watercolor Society Signature member, to show a mix of her subjects and media.  Below is an example, a watercolor, -nearly unbelievable in the detailed reflections and convincing "chrome" highlights, you just have to see for yourself!

She is equally at home painting classic cars and airplanes, as well as motorcycles, which she is often found repairing the motor on her own ride. Having studied marine biology and being an avid gardener her other favorite subjects are sea shells and plants.


Yes, Saturday, March 10, is a special night, Artrageous Art Walk and our artist reception all rolled into one.  We hope to see you all there, starting at 5:30 and lasting until around 8:30.
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Spring continues to burst forth in full swing.  The squirrels were having quite a romp in my Jasmine vines, playing like little children in a fast moving game of tag.



The butterflies have also created quite a drama here.  I was thinking I was nearing the end of them, when I went by the History Museum to collect a few sprigs of Butterfly Weed.  To my shock I found one of the volunteers, deciding to tidy up the yard, had pruned all the butterfly weed cutting it back to the ground.  I was horrified.  I collected all the clippings which had been cut the day before to try to revive it enough to feed my remaining caterpillars.  I also found several caterpillars on the cut plants still alive along with several which had been crushed with the "bush whacking".  These I rescued and added to my already full house.


  With Caterpillars stacked two to a leaf I was getting desperate for "good weed", butterfly weed that is.  A few days later I picked up my friend Anne for some girl time telling her we were going on a mission of mercy, a caterpillar rescue.  As I drove away I looked down and one of the caterpillars from the museum's cuttings was crawling across my console.  This made it even more vital to find caterpillar food fast.  We headed to Ace Hardware the only possible source of plants left locally.  Karen the gardening specialist and former worker with a butterfly garden, knew what I was after when she saw the caterpillar crawling up my arm.  She had four plants left, she had tucked back which were pretty frost bitten from a cold front we had a few days earlier, but they would give me some relief.  Seeing the damage to her plants I became fearful for the remaining caterpillars at the History Museum.  We were in full caterpillar mode at this point with our own weed collection safely tucked in the back of the van.  Reaching the Museum my worst fears had been realized.  There were no edible leaves left, the caterpillars resorting to eating stems.  We began gathering them up and placing them on the plants in our Mobile "Cat" Rescue Clinic so they could start eating.  It was our first adventure rustling caterpillars.


It became a challenge trying to locate enough Weed to feed the now burgeoning caterpillar collection.  Over-crowding led to several causalities back in the terrarium.  Jockeying for position led to caterpillars being dislodged from feeding and worse still knocked down, caterpillars in the very delicate "J" pre-chrysalis stage, or new Chrysalis.  That is the story on this fellow which we laying on the bottom of the terrarium.  Although it seemed to be OK one side was slightly flat.  We managed with a pair of hemostats to attach it and hang it in the proper position to finish developing.  This was the day we would find out if it was going to be alright.   


Not long now as we wait for the wings to unfurl and straighten out.


Everything seemed to be OK except the front edge of one wing was curled around in an unnatural way.


We hoped it would straighten but it did not.  After enough time passed we took him outside.  At the end of the day he had not flown away so he was brought back inside.  We brought some blooming flowers inside so he could eat.  Next day we had several others so we put them all outside but it had turned cold and none of them flew away.  They were all brought back inside to the dining room holding area with blooming flower pots.  A friend had, in the mean time, brought me a spiral butterfly tent for raising butterflies.  I decided to put all four of them inside the tent to prevent them from hurting themselves by flying into a wall. The next morning with warmer temperatures I returned them to the outdoors.  As I was replacing the weed for the caterpillars now in the tent, I found one butterfly lying still on the bottom of the tent.  I thought it was dead.  When I got it out I realized that it was the one with the bent wing.  He has since been named Crinkle Wing.  I quickly mixed up some sugar water and got the syringe out and managed to get him to drink some.  In about 10 minutes he revived.  He had just run out of gas having not eaten anything for a couple of days.


Between hunting weed, feeding our now adoptee, Crinkle, I barely made getting my entries into the Tennessee Watercolor Society for their 2012 show.  These are the two I entered.  This one I had painted after working on the sea turtle for the Turtle Trot painting and wanted to do something a bit looser.


The second entry was the one which had recently won the Silver Medal at the Jacksonville Watercolor Society.  So we will see how it all comes down.  They only have a show every other year and last show I did not get my entry accepted.  Being a past President of the society I just hate to not be represented in the show.


Last week my knee had acted up after I let my prescription lapse on my anti-inflammatory.  Wow, that stuff must really work.  In about 4 days it was back in bad shape and since I was 3 months past time that I could get another cortisone shot I decided to go see Dr. Shirley again.  I apologized for forgetting to shave my leg for him and he apologized for not shaving his face for me.  He is a fun guy.  He is attempting to grow a beard.  On the way back I stopped by one of the parks on the way home on Little Talbot Island.  I have put off trying to access a big sand flat which is always full of birds because the tidal creek between it is too wide to cross with high tide.


Today the tide was low and the large number of birds didn't seem too far away.  I wasn't by myself.  This group of gals were heading out to do some fishing as they had a seine net and a bucket.  Maybe collecting minnows from the tidal creek.  However they were not first timers like I was and knew the long route was the best one.


From the bridge these birds had looked quite close, but as I walked across the sand I found the flat perspective was very distorted with the distance about three times further than I figured and much more difficult with soft sand which sank down like a new snow.  It didn't take long to realize I could not make it to the birds and settle for this distant shot.  Then I headed back to make my way across the sand hoping I had done my knee no further harm.


Underneath the bridge you can see the navy ships across the river at Mayport.



Crinkle Wing has continued to live his life developing his own personality as much as a butterfly can do.  He has to be fed thusly twice a day.  To feed a butterfly they have to be willing to eat.  They must uncurl their proboscis which is like having your very on soda straw with which to sip the sweet sugar water nectar prepared for him.  I have perfected feeding him with one hand while I do other things with the other like put my make up on, eat my toast, sip a glass of wine and any number of other things one can do one handed.

The curl of his wing has left him "aerodynamically challenged".  



In this close up you can clearly see his proboscis down in the sugar water.   He uses it with the flexibility you would have using your pointer finger to feel around and find the best spot.  In the beginning he just takes a very long drink, then once he has satisfied his hunger he starts playing with his food.  He will start poking around very fast in the liquid.  But he does continue to eat because I can see the liquid go down, as I carefully try not to give the both of us a sugar bath as I keep the tip full.


With so many responsibilities at home, I have missed many gorgeous sunsets.  When I saw this glowing easterly cloud before me as it caught the glow from the western setting sun, I had to at least run by the beach and get an uninterrupted view minus the power lines.  The light seemed to radiate from inside the big billowing cloud.


By going this route home I was able to check on the progress of a new house that is going up on this beach front property, which belongs to one of my favorite authors.  I love a good complicated detective story.  This is the guest house or maybe a writing studio.  A swimming pool will be positioned to the right of this in the open space.


The main house is to the right of that area.  A nice place built on two ocean front lots.  Lets hope they will want local art to decorate their house.


A new piece of art work I just finished is this one.  I like to do something loose and fun after I finish the tighter commission pieces.


Crink has developed his own idyocyncricies.  He has decided he wants to fly a while before he will eat.  With his wing he can only fly in a downward spiral.  I hold him up and he launches himself and can somewhat control his flight, sometimes almost straight, as long as it is downward.  

Once on the kitchen floor he does his whirling dervish exercises to work up his appetite.  A couple of times and he is ready to settle down and spend about 30 minutes sipping his meal.  Crink is now about 20 days old which means he has reached a fairly old age, with a live expectancy of 2 to 6 weeks.
Another commission piece for me is starting.

 This is day 1. This painting is 3 ft by 5 ft and will be a view from the surface of the water where you see above and below the surface.  A sunrise will be coming up above, while below the surface sea creatures will be swimming around.  To get myself started I used paint I had left from another painting I was working to put some color on the surface.  There is nothing scarier than a white canvas staring you in the face.


After some searching through my photos I choose some of my sunrise photos as a starting point for this sunrise and with that part firmly in mind along with how I want to show the divide between sea and sky I begin the painting.  I am just not sure what all will be included in the under sea part but I know that I want it to look wet and watery.  To get starting on that feeling I take the colors left at the end of the day and brush them on the middle portion of the canvas and spray it with water from a spray bottle letting it run downward.  Just getting the canvas covered with color is a good leg up.  The rest will come.  I know a sea turtle will be one critter of course, but knowing that Atlantic fish are not quite as colorful as the Pacific Ocean ones it will be a bit more challenging to make it interesting.


A close up cropped version of the sunrise, which will change, I'm sure, but it is a good start in the direction I want to head.

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With butterfly season coming to a halt, not for the butterflies but for me, I will put my efforts (after I get past preparing my taxes and Art Walk) toward planting all the cuttings I have been rooting and seeds I have started with the goal of having the best gol-derned butterfly friendly garden around.  No more searching the highways and by-ways for weed.  
On a sad not the end of caterpillar herding has come abruptly for me on Sunday as I found all my approximately 10 caterpillars laying dead underneath the two beautiful plants I had just bought for them the day before.  Evidently the new plants had been sprayed with some sort of insecticide, a big no-no for plants that attract butterflies.  I still have 14 more Chrysalis waiting to emerge, and of course I still have Crink to feed until his life span is complete.  Then I will focus on providing a good outdoor habitat and not try to save them all inside.  I have found that many things can go wrong inside in a protected environment also.
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Rumor has it that a baby squirrel is on the way to be dropped off on the gallery doorstep sometime today.   Just when I thought I could see a break ahead...  I see another wild ride into the animal world shaping up.  I remember finding the paper with instructions for raising a young squirrel in my office just last night.  Was that prophetic or not???

Shootin' Birds

A new painting which is not entirely new.  It was a painting which I was not totally happy with because it was too overwhelmingly yellow--school bus yellow.  I decided that I just had to "finish" it and this is the result.  Not much difference in composition just color changes.

Time to reflect lets us see things, even a painting, in a more objective way.


It is also the time of the year when the birds are starting the reproductive season in their lives.  A most interesting time, which with our warm winter, seems to be starting early this year.  My favorite place to see this happening is at The Alligator Farm down in St. Augustine.  I happily accepted an invitation to accompany good friends and fellow photographers, Stephan and Jo-Ann on such an adventure.  The entrance to The Farm is always a treat as it visually is a very pretty place with attractive plants included in their landscape, and a wide variety of birds and monkeys, all in addition to the many types of gators and crocs and other critters who reside there.  A visually exciting greeting once inside the gate were two of my favorite tropicals, a Pitcher Plant and a Bird of Paradise, in full bloom. 


Next on the agenda, soon after you enter the park is another rare and exotic gator, beautiful Albino Alligators.  They are both rare and exotic.  They are only found in Southern Louisiana.  They are kept underneath a roof to protect their delicate white skin from sunburn.  Usually the big female is in this enclosure but since this is mating season she may be out on a date with a handsome pale gentleman.  The Alligator Farm is permitted to do breeding programs with several of the endangered critters they keep in their Park.  These gators are part of that breeding program.


I stroll onto the boardwalk where according to Stephan, who had been down the week prior, we should find lots of birds.  It would seem there were certainly lots of alligators as they were feeding them from the feeding platform when we arrived.  The water was "jam up and jelly tight" with gators all watching and hoping for a treat.  There was a lot of dogfood-like pellet chow thrown into the pool but the more prized treats were several large dead rats which were tossed into the mob below.  There was really a feeding frenzy when those special "rat" treats were thrown into the fray. 




As I walked on down the boardwalk over the alligator pond I couldn't help but think how interesting the reflections of the trees were with the alligator laying in the middle of them.  I especially loved the way his head was outlined with the reflected white and black reflection of a slight water ripple.


Reaching the end of the boardwalk where there should have been a hundred big white birds, we found only a few.  Very strange.  We began to ask around from some of the other photographers what had happened to the birds.  We found out that the birds had flown away after workers came in to do some work, some of which involved a chain saw.  Well that explained that.  But there were still some of the Great White Egrets working on nest building and getting ready for mating.




A few of the other birds which were still hanging around included the the Black and the Yellow Crowned Night Herons. This Yellow Crowned Night Heron was busy napping his afternoon away.  They actually do hunt in the daytime too but mostly I have observed them just sleeping, with a quick glance now and then when they hear the camera shutter click.


Only a few of the many, many Woodstorks which will eventually arrive were there.  They are the largest of the birds which nest in the rookery and are America's only Stork.


I really like palms which are left natural without the pruning to remove their petticoats.  This is how they appear if left to their own ways.  There is a similar one on the way home from the gallery which I see each day as I make that trip.  So many trees are pruned into being something they are not as in Crepe Myrtles.  It is called "the murder of the Myrtles".  I thought it was funny a couple of weeks ago, that a class was announced at the local Lowe's on how to "properly" prune a Crepe Myrtle, and then the same weekend their landscape crew came in and butchered their own plantings of Crepe Myrtles doing exactly what the class instructor was saying "don't do".  The girl who works in the plant department was livid.


But the Great White Egret was perfect and regal looking as usual.  The mating season brings on the beautiful long land lacy plumage for which they were once killed in great numbers.


This fellow was busy building his nest getting ready to have a nice new home for a young family with room to expand.  You can see the green lores starting to show up on his face also a sign of mating season.


Since there were not that many birds I head off to check out other areas of the park.  The Reptile building houses several interesting and varied snakes.  Besides some very, very large ones, there is the King Cobra, which I find interesting and yet unnerving to only be inches away from this deadly fellow.  Do you know that it is believed over 50,000 people die from snake bites in India and Bangladesh each year.  From this vantage point I can closely examine the intricate patterns in his body and head.  My favorite snake, who is always in this symmetrically draped position, is the wonderful bright green snake in the photograph.  I had to ask where he was because he had been moved from a small glassed cubical to a large more natural environment shared with two other of the really big snakes.  It looked like the female Monitor Lizard was the only one in residence (I know "Lizzard" is not correct but I'm sure you remember our adoptee Lewis Lizzard from last year).  I am not sure where the much larger male is.



I exited out the other side of the Reptile building to see some very active shenannegins by this colorful Cassowary.  This is a very large bird and from head to foot probably stands almost as tall as me.  He seemed to have a thing, whether love or hate I am not sure, for the park worker who was just leaving the area.  The big bird seemed to be trying to get to him in a very agitated state of mind.  In a few minutes the worker came back and he said he wasn't sure what the deal was but that the bird was all about wanting to get with him and follows him everywhere when he is nearby.  Could be the feeding routine.

I crossed over to the African section and found these guys also following one of the zoo keepers.  Food was the motivation in this case and maybe that was the reason for the other.


An exciting nesting is taking place there as well as one of the Buzzards has laid an egg.  One of the other females is looking on as mom stands up to turn her egg.  She glares at the girlfriend when she looks a bit too closely.  The Daddy is sitting up on the nearby snag.


There were four parrots out but the one in the center was the star of the show.  They are sitting out on natural perches unrestrained.  Parrots are very intelligent and this one began to interact with me as I talked to it.


It began to dance for me when I talked to it, prancing and swaying back and forth.  A very fun and unexpected interaction. We even got the attention of a little girl nearby who also came over to enjoy the show.  


An Angels Trumpet bloomed wildly through the fence back at the Alligator pond. They are a very beautiful flower and an easy one to grow from cuttings.


By now some of the birds are starting to settle back into the trees.  Some Roseate Spoonbills are flying on top of the tree we used to call The Woodstork Tree.  However, last year the Woodstorks moved over to other trees it was primarily used by the Great Whites.


Its always a challenge to try to catch a bird in flight.  Once in a great while I actually am able to do that.  The flight of these big birds is very beautiful to watch with variations in the species in the way they hold their heads, feet and flight patterns.  The way these great wingspans can catch and seemingly hold the flight form in midair gives you a chance to really see how graceful their flight is.



It was an overcast day and as an artist I love the patterns of light from the sun which makes me different from serious photographers who love the unbroken image of an overcast day to not have the sun patterns on their subject, but I am an artist, a painter, and artists love the play of light on their canvas.



But in either case the mating dance is a beautiful sight as it begins by this fellow as he bows and gracefully reaches his long neck skyward all the while spreading his feathers to show off for, and to attract the females attention.


Toward the back of the pond almost out of reach of my lens is what I call the swimming hole where the birds, especially the White Ibis, like to gather and bathe.  It may be that it is an area, because of the downed trees and underbrush, in which they are protected from the Gators in the main part of the pond.  A young Little Blue Heron who has yet to acquire his blue color wades in front.  His dark bluish looking bill tells me this is not one of the egrets.


With time running out for visiting hours in the park suddenly Jo-Ann yells out the word "incoming" which is the cue to all of us to look skyward.  And 'incoming' it was, -the birds return in great numbers to their favorite place as the calm of the park returns without tourists and chainsaws to mess with their comfort zone.


The trees suddenly fill with what had been missing all afternoon.


In a matter of minutes the trees begin to look like they are decorated for Christmas, adorned with lots of white ornaments.


There were a greater number than usual of the Little Blue Heron, one of my favorites.  The youngster from the swimming pool area joined this fellow so maybe it last year's offspring.


There were lots of the White Ibis although they never seem to nest here.  I wonder where that happens.


This old snag is a favorite perch for all of the bird species.  They seem to take turns getting this birds eye view of the park.  It becomes a "King of the Hill" type of game when the youngsters, later in the season, vie to see who gets the best spots.


All the photographers hedge their time a bit and wait snapping photos until the park worker comes to personally say it is time to leave (as if we didn't really know that).  It is just a few minutes to squeak out a few more shots with no one in the park but you.  We all appreciate the gift of about 15 minutes after closing time alone with the birds.  Today it was just five of us some who have come from far away.  One fellow from the Midwest says he comes every year to "Shoot the Birds".


Now the birds and the gators can have their park back.  Now it is their world only.


The clouds had finally broken up, allowing some light and a tiny patch of blue as one straggler makes his way and becomes my final shot before turning to the exit gates.  Another good day of shooting birds has drawn to a close but hopefully as the season progresses into nesting, hatching and juvenile's I will get to return for more rounds of shooting.