Artworks for birds & shade grown coffee

I watch birds no matter where I am. Drawing is a way I record these birds. I am an artist/printmaker. I think of feeding birds as a way of paying the birds a model fee. When I get an idea or see am image with a warbler or flycatcher, how can I pay them a model fee? I have become an advocate for bird conservation.
I call my business Artworks by Lydia. Some people might find the name odd to people if they only go on my bird tour. The bird tour component of Artworks is a part of my bird conservation effort. My goal is to connect people to the birds and where they live. Habitat is key. If folks understand the connections then they are going to care.

However, not everyone wants to go out to look at birds. I have one etching I call Crowning Point. A Great Crested Flycatcher is peeking out at the top of the magnolia tree. This a very common summer bird here but most folks do not know the bird because it lives high in the trees and fly catches. This etching gives me a chance to talk about these birds.

My art guild is Georgia Coastal Artist. We have three art shows a year. We started planning for the December show back in the summer. I volunteered to bring the coffee. I was planning the birding festival and had just talked to Bo Mann at Wake Up Coffee Company. This is a local business selling shade grown/ fair trade coffees. Perfect! I could support a local company that was promoting the same things I support. The base is broadened to people who might not know they are supporting bird conservation.

Bo was great. He brewed up some tasty Costa Rican coffee and all the recyclable fixing. Then I set it up at the A.W. Jones Heritage Center the location of our art show. There was some one at the coffee table all day talking about the coffee.

Here is fellow artist, Joyce Shelander, sitting at our coffee table.

We passed out fliers that explained the importance of shade grown/fair trade. Every little bits helps. By the way, here is some of my new artworks which I showed at December 4th art show.

Snowy Plover at the Jekyll Point

It was a cold day but not as cold as I thought it would be. Looking at the tide coming across the causeway, it looked great for a tour of the south end of Jekyll. I picked up Linda at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center and headed south. First we passed what was once the convention center. It is almost gone. They are moving right a long.

At the south end we went out from the corner of St. Andrews and Macy Lane. We got out to the beach and one of the first birds to run past us was a small pale plover. At first, I called it a Piping Plover. Piping Plovers are always a wonderful bird but then I looked closer. Something was not right about the bird. Oh, the bird was healthy. It was super active. Piping Plover move stop, look then pick. This bird looked like it was in fast forward. It had a thin black bill and the legs with gray...Snowy Plover.

I tried to digiscope the bird but it would not stay in the scope. I did get some great shots of sand. I won't share those with you.

Finally it came close enough I could just point my camera and shot. They are not great pictures but they do show the bird.

It was a good day to bird on Jekyll Island.

Roseate Spoonbills on Jekyll

Well our young spoonbills are back at the amphitheater pond on Jekyll. There were 5 last Thursday. Ok, they were across the lake. The lake was pretty that day. Here is my attempt to digiscope them. I could not get all five in the scope. On Friday there were three flying over the causeway. There is nothing like a little pink to make my day.

Swallows on the beach

I guess you could say that swallows fascinate me. I can not wait for August to see when the barn swallows start streaming through. Hot does not bother me when I have 400 barn and bank swallows swirling around me. Then there are tree swallows in November.
On Thursday November 18 I did not have to worry about the heat. The day was perfect. Blue skies, perfect temperature, great tide level and good company. Now add swallows and it is hard to beat it.

Priscilla and I were walking on St. Andrews Beach at the south end of Jekyll Island. The tree swallows were all around us. First they were in the dunes all those dots are swallows then on the beach swirling and twirling. Wow!

Going To watch birds

Making new birders is a goal of mine so when Nell called me for a Bird Ramble with her granddaughter I went for it. It was a short Ramble. Lilith was right with me the whole time. On the beach, there were quite a few small horsecrabs. She had a blast finding them. It is important to make the connection between other creatures and the birds. We talked about the differences in the birds on the beach. Here is Lilith helping to finish some of the drawings. Toward the end of the Ramble she was looking for birds on her own. She had a great time.

Sunsets early

With the time change the sun is setting as I go home. Here are a couple of images I shot last night. Amazing sky

Starting a new project

Wednesday, I began a project with the Glynn County Mosquito Control. It is a study of a small pocket marsh. I will perform quarterly bird surveys. The area is east of the Clam Creek bike path. The bike path now acts like a dike. The small covert does not allow the tidewater to flow naturally. They are going to put bridge and see how it will help. The idea is to monitor the changes in this small marsh. I look forward to watching the changes.
Here a view of the pocket marsh near the bike path.This a view in the middle of the area. The area is home to several Sedge Wrens.