The Award-Winner's Painter

As distinguished from "The Award-Winning Painter," a post title you will not see on this blog... I have a little niche as an ornithological award painter. I get commissions to paint presents for people who are getting awards in the ornithological field. Awards for lifetime achievement, extraordinary contributions; conservation awards. It’s a really nice niche, because I get to paint pictures for very special people, those who've been singled out by their peers as extraordinary. I also enjoy it because it’s all hush-hush and everybody’s excited to see what I come up with.

One such award was given just this past weekend by Bluebirds Across Nebraska, an amazing bluebird conservation organization, to Nebraska bluebirder Sandy Seibert, who initiated a program and came up with supporting materials for bluebirders to take a kid along on their routes as they check their bluebird houses. What a great idea. You never know what little switch might get thrown in a child’s mind, what spark kindled and lit. Here's the pledge for participants:

I pledge to take a child (son, daughter, grandchild, niece, nephew, neighbor’s or friend’s child, etc.) along with me to monitor my bluebird trail as often as possible during the nesting season. I promise to explain to this child the importance and value of monitoring a bluebird trail. I will plant a seed of love for bluebirds and nature in this child’s mind and nurture that seed in the hopes that this child will someday follow in my footsteps.

Among the supporting materials given to the child in the TAK-Along program is my husband's Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America.

Obviously, I'm down with that. So I wanted to give Sandy, a warm, wonderful woman whom I happen to know, a painting that would highlight what’s best about kids combined with bluebirds. I decided on the moment of discovery when a box is opened and its contents revealed—that Christmas morning feeling of finding turquoise eggs or big ol’ healthy baby bluebirds looking back at you.

I needed a subject. Hmmm. I happen to know a beautiful boy who really digs that moment. I sought no farther than my own boy Liam.

Compared to a lot of paintings I’ve done recently, this’n was a breeze, nice and small, with subject matter I could really connect with. Might as well throw a few of my favorite things in the painting, hoping they’re a few of Sandy’s favorites, too.

An untroubled blue summer sky. Hayrolls. Slanting late afternoon light with gold touching the grass in streaks. Liam looking in a bluebird box. Well, I'd add that. This reference photo was taken along my bluebird route, a place I'll visit today, finding eggs in box after box.

Start the painting with a spray bottle and a nice wet field, and stroke the blue on it. Turn the painting upside down and tilt it so the color concentrates toward the top of it, just like it does in the sky. Let it dry tilted.

Lay in the sun gold, so it can shine through the grass and in some places stand alone.

Bring on the meadow green, leaving the sunlit parts pure bright gold.

Start on the trees, making sure the sunlit one has a gold underpainting.

Leave some skyholes in the trees, and tickle in the deep shadows. Only the deep shadows will tell you the sunlit parts are bright.

Oh, goody! Hayrolls! And their cast shadows. More detail in the trees, with branches and trunks now.

Liam’s for dessert.

Oh, but what color to make his T-shirt? I plan a few different colors, and paint them on a piece of tracing paper to see what looks nice.

I like them all, but Phoebe, Bill and Liam all think the red is a bit of a cliché. I decide to understate it and leave his shirt white.

A little more detail on the box and on his clothes and face. It’s perilously hard to paint a boy two inches tall and make him still look like your child. The less fussing about the face, the better it comes out, I find.

Being careful first to cover that perfect sky with craft paper, I spatter the grass in the foreground for a nice, unstudied effect and decide the painting is done.

Congratulations, Sandy, and thanks to you and your Take a Kid Along program for opening the world of bluebirds to some very fortunate kids.

The Bad, Bad Parrot

Bill and I love to spend these ravishingly warm spring mornings birding together. It's my favorite thing to do practically in the whole world. I try to imagine what life would be like if I were married to someone with only a passing interest in birds, someone who would respond to my shout of "Gnatcatcher in the prune hedge!" with "That's nice, honey..." instead of roaring up the stairs to see. I can't imagine it. I feel thankful to have a mate who loves so many of the same things I do: music, the outdoors, birds, writing, travel, (yardwork), bizarre humor. May we never lose sight of how rare that really is.

We were out on the deck this morning watching tree swallows circling overhead when we heard a crash from Charlie's private room, a glassed-in room off the studio. "Chuck's raisin' some hell in there!" I laughed, figuring he'd shoved a spray bottle of Glass Plus off his counter or something. He likes to keep his countertops clear. He's always up to something, rumbling around in there.

Bill being packed off to work with his lunch and a kiss, I turned to morning chores, going in to collect the bird dishes. I'm keeping a little female American goldfinch who I found under our feeder on March 16 with a broken hand, probably courtesy of our resident sharp-shinned hawk. She's all healed up now, as good as she'll get after I taped her wing so it would heal mostly straight. I knew when I saw the injury to that delicate hand joint that she'd never fly again. It's the same injury that kept Vanna, a Savannah sparrow, in my studio for 17 years. Because I'm not up for having another longterm boarder, Pippi goes to her forever home at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History tomorrow. (No, she's NOT going to be a specimen--she's going to live in a spacious outdoor aviary with other Ohio birds. How could you think that??)

Pippi was fine. She puts up with Charlie sitting on top of her cage and shredding her papers. They're friends, and he'll miss her when she leaves.


Charlie, on the other hand, was up to absolutely no good.

I've been using a lot of note cards lately to send thank-you notes to all the kind people who donated to the Zick Health Fund. Charlie thought he'd personalize them.

This is what a parrot in the house is good for. Practically good for nothing.

Over the course of the early morning, Charles had completely unloaded my cabinet.

Call it nest excavation behavior, slightly misdirected.

Oh, he was soooo proud of his handiwork, sputtering and squawking and hollering in glee.

What do you do with a macaw who's been so very, very bad? You ask him to step onto your hand, put him on his perch stand, kiss him with a very loud smack (which he imitates at the same time) on his soft warm cheek skin, tell him he's a horrible blight on your life, a veritable nest of vipers, and laugh. Then you kiss him again and get down and salvage what you can while he tries his best to poop on you from above.

What else can you do?

I trust that these last bunch of posts have shown that I am no Pollyanna; no, I don't always find the good in every situation, nor do I reliably bob back up smiling when life rains on me. But even though he destroyed a bunch of really nice note cards and some photos, Charlie did me a huge favor. Among the things in the box he unloaded was a check register that includes my first deposit on his purchase, made on December 27, 1988: $250. Ack. I'd thought I bought him in 1986. So we have at least two more years than I'd thought to enjoy him, and he turns 22 this summer. When I think about having paid $750 for that bird...sometimes I think the breeder should've paid ME to take him! Most of the time I think that. If you're thinking about buying a parrot, don't. Adopt one, rescue one, but don't feed the breeding industry by buying one.

Besides that fond memory of having scraped together $750 in three installments to pay for him, he alerted me to a forgotten stash of precious print photographs that need to be shared. Brace yourself for cuteness:

Concrete evidence that, as parrots go, Charlie is a very good parrot indeed. This is Miss Phoebe, circa 1998.

Charles and Phoebe were the best of friends before Liam arrived, when she needed a pet she could cuddle and love.

He taught her gentleness, even with his immense power. She is gentle to this day.

Don't miss the little bunny I've drawn on her hand...

Even I look at these photos and marvel, but they were that close. I couldn't get near Phoebe when she and Charlie were playing. She was all his.

And he is a good, good parrot, a very naughty one, but dear.

My Matchday - 248 Weston Homes Community Stadium

Colchester United 1v2 Millwall
League One
Monday 5th April 2010

We continued our Easter break in Essex with a visit to a town which claims to be the oldest in Britain, on the indication it was mentioned by author and natural philosopher Pliny the Elder, who died in AD 79.
Its Celtic name Camulodunum (named after war god Camules) was a powerful settlement for King Cunobelin, who minted coins there before the Roman conquest of Britain in AD 43.
Camulodunum became an established Roman legionary fortress, a colonia and the provisional Roman capital of Britannia until the town was annihilated during Boudicca’s rebellion in AD 61.
Colchester also claims to have the UK’s oldest recorded market and its main landmarks are the 11th century Norman castle, its medieval ruins and significant Victorian architecture.

Colchester United were formed in 1937 and took over the reigns at Layer Road from amateur club Colchester Town, who had played on the ground since 1909.
The ground was originally used by the army stationed at Colchester Garrison until Town bought the site in 1919. Both clubs briefly shared the ground until the Essex FA ordered that both clubs couldn’t exist hand-in-hand, so the amateur club made way for their professional counterparts.
Colchester United progressed from the Southern League becoming a Football League club in 1950. The club played at Layer Road for 71 years, amongst the highlights and my first memory of ever seeing The U’s on TV was overcoming the one mighty Leeds United in the 5th round of the FA Cup in 1971. Don Revies’s men going down 3-2 in front of a crowd of 16,000 and the Match of the Day cameras.

Work began on the Colchester Community Stadium in July 2007, built on the northern edge of the town at Cuckoo Farm off the main A12 road to London, although direct access onto the motorway is still not completed.
The total cost of £14m was mostly financed by the local borough council who own the stadium. Revenue was also raised by the club, with grants from the Football Foundation, local government and the East of England Development Agency.
The stadium is sponsored by Weston Homes in a £2m corporative deal which covers the next ten years and has an overall capacity of just over 10,000.
The stadium was completed in July 2008 with the opening match taking place on the 8th August with Athletic Bilbao providing the opposition, beating The U’s 2-1 in a pre-season friendly.
The stadium consists of four separate stands, the North, South and East Stands are all equal in size with the Main Stand slightly larger comprising of executive boxes, sponsors suites and lounges. There’s a set of skinny floodlights in the open corners with the ground decked out in primarily blue seats and white trimmings. The North Stand is now the away end although Millwall also took up almost half of the East Stand. The South Stand also differs slightly having a large police control box in one corner.

My Essex weekend went from the bottom end of League One at Southend on Saturday to the top end of the table with play off hopefuls Colchester up against Millwall, who are timing there automatic promotion push perfectly with eleven wins out of the last fourteen matches coming into this fixture.
Both clubs seem to be heading in opposite directions as United have now gone eight games without a win as Millwall go marching on thanks to a touch of good fortune, taking the three points thanks to a late own goal by Danny Batth.

The match was finely poised throughout with both teams carving out several good chances in the opening period, but it was Millwall who took the lead just before half time when Steve Morison picked up the ball wide on the right before cutting inside and firing his low shot wide of Williams.
Colchester felt they should have gone in at the break level, however five minutes after the restart they were. Millwall ‘keeper David Forde failed to take a routine catch, allowing the ball to fall to the feet of the lurking Kevin Lisbie who was left with a simple task of knocking the ball into an unguarded net.
Millwall went close with a Morison header, a Schofield effort and a Neil Harris header was cleared off the line, while United had chances through Vincent, Lisbie and a Prutton free kick.
Then on 78 minutes the decisive goal. Substitute Sean Batt’s right wing cross was met by on loan Wolves defender Batth, whose unchallenged looping header gave his keeper no chance.
Millwall saw out the remaining ten minutes with help from the shameless Millwall fans in the East Stand, purposely keeping the ball on five occasions when going out for a throw-in. This added to the home sides frustration with an Izzet free kick the closest they came to grabbing a point.
This win stretches The Lions unbeaten run to nine games, so if this good run of form continues and if I finally get around to visiting The New Den next season, it’s looking more likely to be in the Championship than League One.

Matchday stats
CUFC 1(Lisbie 50) MFC 2(Morison 43,Batth OG78)

att.7,393
Admission £18-£26

Programme £3

Ground no.248 W.H.Community Stadium - Matchday Web album (15 pictures)

My Matchday - 247 Roots Hall

Southend United 0v0 Yeovil Town
League One
Saturday 3rd April 2010

Southend-on-Sea is a district borough and seaside resort in Essex. The borough covers the districts of Chalkwell, Eastwood, Leigh-on-Sea, Shoeburyness, Southchurch, Westcliff-on-Sea, Thorpe Bay and of course Prittlewell - which is where you’ll find Roots Hall - the home of Southend United.
The town has the worlds longest pleasure pier, stretching 1.34 mile and is a popular destination for “chirpy cock-a-nees” looking for a day away from the smoke for a spot of sand, sea air and fresh jellied eels.

Southend United have played at Roots Hall since 1955, although they originally played on the same site almost 50 years earlier.
The pitch was within the grounds of an 18th century house called Roots Hall, first used by Southend Athletic until the ground was taking over by the newly formed United in 1906.
Plans for United to purchase the ground were halted by World War I, the land was used for storage to aid the war effort, so when the club reformed after the conflict they moved to a new home on the sea front beside the amusement park, known as The Kursaal.
United joined the Football League in 1920, playing at the Kursaal until 1933, leaving after the opportunity arose to move to The Southend Stadium, the town’s newly built greyhound stadium.
When the lease was due to expire at the greyhound stadium, the club looked at a return to their roots at Roots Hall, which was now a being used as a rubbish tip.

A trust fund was set up in 1950, involving the mayor, the club board and supporters club with the aim of raising £11,258 to purchase the land from the local council.
In March 1953 work finally began, mainly thanks to donations of building materials and voluntary labour from the local community. After five years of negotiations and hard work The Shrimpers finally played their first game at Roots Hall on the 20th August 1955. The Division Three South fixture against Norwich City was watched by a crowd of 17,700.
The ground once opened became a work-in-progress for a number of years. The West Stand roof became double-barrelled and extended in length in 1956, floodlights were added in 1959 and the man made 72 step South Bank kop was finally completed in 1964.
In the early days the main problem was the drainage of the pitch, which was built upon thousands of tonnes of rubbish which meant the surface became a swamp in the winter months, so prior to the 1956-57 season the pitch was re-laid with a new drainage system which is still in use today.

The Main East Stand didn’t run pitch length until 1967, the lower standing paddock was replaced with seats in 1992. The stand has a pitched roof with executive boxes along the back and two glass press boxes in the centre above the pitch entrance. There isn’t any dugouts, just a few seats with a small section of seats for subs behind a brick wall.
I sat in the West Stand which became all seated in 1992 with blue plastic flip seats with SUFC picked out in yellow. The stand has its own bar at the back and once inside you can clearly see the two sections of barrelled roofs and how it was extended in 1995 to meet the North and South Stands.
In 1988 the South Stand terrace was reduced to make way for a property development with 86 flats going up behind the terrace. The flats look over towards the North goal but I never noticed anyone taking advantage of a free view of the game. In 1994 it became all seated with a new double-decker stand. The seats are equally divided between blue and yellow with the top tier slightly overhanging the bottom section with the Frank Walton Stand clock perched centrally on the top deck roof.
The North Stand had seats bolted on to the terrace in 1995. The stand is shared between the Southend singing section (and drummer) in the yellow seats and the away fans in the blue seats, there’s also an electric scoreboard directly above the goal.
Roots Hall at its peak catered for 35,000 spectators, with over 15,000 on the old South Bank Kop, the record attendance stands at 31,090 for an FA Cup third round tie with Liverpool in January 1979.

I arrived in Southend at around noon. As I approached the ground from the south end I bumped into a club official, who let me take a short cut through a locked gate next to the neighbouring flats. I asked him if it was at all possible to gain access into the ground to take pictures. He said he’d see what he could do but I told him to tell whoever was in charge to use the “I’ve come all the way from Newcastle” line, which never fails.
Minutes later a gentleman appeared from the office who looked like he was ‘the gaffer’ saying “Are you the one from Newcastle?” before letting me into the ground to snap away at my hearts content before meeting in front of the Main Stand, taking a picture of me in the stand and walking back through the exit via the players tunnel.
My ten minutes free time inside the ground was my Roots Hall highlight as the action on the pitch a few hours later failed to live up to the big relegation six pointer.
Southend’s good scoring run of eight goals in the last three games dried up in front of your truly. The game was open with both teams trying their best to play good football, however it was in the last third where it all went wrong as both defences had a trouble free afternoon.
Southend’s biggest threat came from Johnny Herd’s long throw-ins and substitute Francis Laurent did his best to open up the Yeovil defence with his long mazy runs. The best chances fell to the visitors late in the game with efforts from Welsh and Smith producing good saves from Mildenhall.
The Shrimpers won’t be happy dropping valuable points at home with their last remaining fixtures including some tough away games, but there’s also some winnable home ties where maximum points are a must in their bid to avoid the drop.

This years Easter break was spent in a part of the country which was previously unexplored by the Smudgers. We travelled from north-east to the south-east down to the Essex coast, staying in Clacton-on-Sea. As we were in the area I thought it would be a good idea to bag the two League grounds in that part of Essex; the two United’s in Southend and Colchester. So did these two games over a family weekend away happen to be a coincidence or maybe a piece of good planning on my part? …Well what do you think? Those who know me will know. ;-)

Matchday stats

SUFC 0 YTFC 0

Att.6,854

Admission £22

Programme £3

Ground no.247 Roots Hall - Matchday Web album (23 pictures)

Fluffernutter for the Dog-lover's Soul

Dunno about you, but I'm ready for a Chetfix.

I'm ready to think about anything other than rabies. I'm ready to live again, to work myself to the bone digging in the dirt and weeding and tilling and planting. Which I've done all day (Saturday) and with the help of my Garden Mule (Bill) we got the garden tilled and the peas and lettuce in. I then moved on to weeding and fighting invasive running bamboo that a gardening "friend" gave me about ten years ago. Hah. With friends like that, who needs enemies? It took me two hours to dig it back out. It had sent 8' runners a foot below the surface in every direction, like a metastasizing vegetal tumor, but I think I got them all. You dig and pull, dig and pull until you finally unearth the pointed tip of each iron-strong runner. The lawn looks like a bomb went off in it, but better that than going down in history for having introduced variegated running dwarf bamboo to Washington County. I am convinced that, left unchecked, it would cover the earth. Garden Chimp Tip: Avoid it. And burn the runners when you dig them up.

I got my first rabies prophylaxis shot on Wednesday afternoon and I have to say that the fat syringe full of evil-looking magenta liquid scared the bejaysus out of me, I mean, knowing that that stuff was going right into my bicep was not fun. But the nurse was skilled and the needle was fine and sure and begorrah it didn't hurt at all. Not only didn't it hurt, but I was never sore afterward. So I'll have another this Weds. and the Weds. after that and then I can help bats if I want to. All by myself, just me and my antibodies working together. I'll buy a welder's mask for Liam if he wants to watch. "Thank you" sounds so flaccid, so limp, for what you've done. I have about a month's worth of thank-you notes to write and a big fat donation to the Ohio Wildlife Center to make because you guys went nuts, you really did, and I got my inoculations paid for and then some. So the then some goes to OWC, because they're REALLY helping people and wildlife, and on the grand scheme of things I'm just fooling around, writing about it, making it sound like I'm really doing something when I'm not.

Speaking of fooling around, you haven't had a Chetfix for an age and I need one too so here is a portentious post about a dog chewing on his foot. It is heavy with meaning, drama and life-or-death choices. No, wait. That's not this post. This'n's fluff. Fluffernutter for the dog-lover's soul.

Ever wish you were your dog? With nothing to do but soak up the sun and think about...nothing?

This seems like a good time to chew my foot.

It is a delicious foot, tasting of grass, popcorn and pee pee.

I feel bad that you cannot chew your foot. You are not flexible enough to do that, or many other pleasurable things that dogs can do.

oink oink oink oink
the sweet click of toenail on tooth

They do not call me Little Cat Dog for nothing. I am clean and catlike, and I never need grooming because I groom myself. I always smell like sunshine.

Except when I fart. Then I smell like Satan's ceegar.


I chew my Nylabone, and get little crumbs of it all over Mether's Guatemalan bedspread. But she hasn't made the bed today, so maybe she will not notice. Mether buys me the gummy Nylabones so I do not break my teeth. Katdoc says the hard Nylabones are too hard and will shear off my molars. We do not want that. Mether is happy to clean up all the Nylaboogers I make so I do not break my teeth. Even though I am a strong chewer she buys me the crumbly puppeh bones. She loves me.

By the way, did you know that Katdoc is going to get her very own Boston terrier? I like to think that I, Chet Baker, had something to do with that. I am an ambassadog for the breed. My breeder Jane says I have sold more Boston terriers for her than Mether will ever know. Because mine is the finest breed of doggeh, and Jane is the finest kind of breeder, I believe that is a good thing.

My charm is irresistible.

Nylaboogers are a small price to pay for bringing laughter and solace to writers with bad judgement.

Everyone needs a doggeh to snuzzle

to nap in a spot of sun.

It is important to have someone around you with nothing to do, someone with nothing on his mind but kisses and cuddles, if you are to make it through the day. My job is being here for Mether, 24-7, 365, and I am very good at my job. But Mether does so many things that helping her get through her day is tiring, and now it is time for my mid-morning nap.

Good day and Happy Easter.