Test and preparations

Just tried something out yesterday, the result of which is this little Alpine marmot. There is nothing exciting about the picture itself but I wanted to see if a certain technique would work (it did).

Also, since I plan to go on a hiking trip in Austria this summer, I am currently trying to complement my outdoor gear (nothing fancy, just the basics, i.e. shoes, jacket). As it turned out, doing so is much more complicated than I initially assumed - not because of the sometimes questionable colour selection but because of the widespread use of chemicals such as PFCs in the production process. And since I would rather like to avoid such products, there is a lot of reading to do (like, what are silver salts and what are they doing in a trouser?).

Bye-bye birdie!

After three weeks in one of our flower boxes the little wood pigeon flew away yesterday. What surprised me somewhat was the fact that wood pigeon chicklets usually stay in their nest until they are about 28 to 29 days old, which means that 'our' pigeon left its nest roughly one week earlier than it was supposed to do. My guess is that it may gave grown faster due to the fact that it did not have to share its food with a sibling (there were two eggs but only one hatchling, so something must have happened to the other egg - no idea what though).

Unfortunately, I was not able to take that many pictures of the little fellow despite it having been so close. It was simply too wary and got always puffed up as soon as the curtain was moved just a little bit. Once I took a low angle shot for which I did not have to lift the curtain but even then I got noticed. Thus, trying to take more pictures would only have stressed the chicklet unnecessaryly and I certainly did not want to be responsible if it had panicked and fallen out of the flower box to its death.

Well, yesterday and the day before the little one did not get fed particularly much and the adult birds were absent most of the time. It seems likely that they did so intentionally in order to motivate it to leave the nest. And so it did: in the early evening hours (around half past seven) it stood on the small fence that supported the nest, its back turned to the window and suddenly it flapped away. It was a short first flight though, just a few metres to nearby tree. There it sat and one of the adult birds perched on another branch of the same tree.

Whether the young pigeon stayed there for the rest of night I cannot say, but this morning it was gone. An adult pigeon stopped by at the nest for a few moments during the day but aside from this it remained empty.

More mountain sketching

Well, as far as I am concerned there are definitively easier things to draw than mountains or rocks in general. It is so easy to get lost in all those details, the seemingly chaotically arranged shapes and the texture.

Again based on family photos.

Baby bird in a (flower) box

On the last weekend it already seemed as if at least one of the two chicklets had hatched but since the nest was basically always occupied by one of the adult birds it was impossible to say so with certainty. Then, yesterday, there it was!

At first, I was not quite sure what I was actually seeing. It looked like the adult bird was disgorging a pellet (I know they do not do that, but that is what it looked like to me) or even eating one of the chicklets until I realised that the fluffy white thing was a fledgling getting fed by its parent. The chicklet shoved its own beak into the adult one's in a way that looked plain brutal.

Today, when the adult bird left the nest for a few moments, I was able to take a proper look at the young bird. It seems to develop well, is lively and has a good appetite.

The only thing that puzzles me is the exact number of the fledglings, because when I pepped into the nest I thought there were two chicklets snuggeled up to each other (there were two eggs after all), but now when I look at the picture I took it appears as if there is only one. Well, I was a bit pushed for time as the adult birds are always gone for only one minute or so and I had to get the camera first. So, due to the fact that it was somewhat hectic, I am not really sure anymore what I actually saw, could have been one fledgling, could have been two.

Mountain sketch

For the last few months I have been working on a project of mine and slowly but surely things progress. At the moment I am trying to get a better understanding of mountains, the Alps in particular, which includes a fair bit of sketching.

This one is based on a photograph taken years ago during a family holiday in Prägraten, Tyrol.

Wood pigeon Easter eggs

Last Monday, two wood pigeons decided that one of my family's flower boxes is just the right place for them to build a nest in it. While there were only a few twigs on Monday, the whole thing looked much more impressive the next day (top picture). Usually, wood pigeons spend about one to two weeks on the construction of the nest but since these two made "good use" of the thyme, they finished their work after just a couple of days.

On Wednesday, one of the two pigeons, presumably the female one, stayed in the nest overnight for the first time. Then, on Good Friday, the first egg could be seen in the nest (bottom picture), although it is not clear whether it was actually laid on this day or the one before. The second egg followed on Saturday but I have not been able to take a picture of it yet.

The breeding period lasts for about 16 or 17 days, so I will have to wait for roughly two weeks from now on until I get to see any chicklets.

Hand II

Another finger exercise. Using a pencil for the drawings really gives the whole thing a nice soft and lively touch.

Hammer cap

During my year in England I became fascinated with fossils and fossil hunting. Back then I had no equipment at all, which was fine because I did not know yet if my interest would last or simply wane after some time. But since it has become clear that this is an activity I want to keep pursuing, the need for some proper tools became more important. And so I recently received a geologist's hammer, a few dental instruments and safety goggles for my birthday.

In order to protect the hammerhead I made a little leather cap that is fastened with press buttons. I will also make some kind of case for the dental instrumentents but this will have to wait a bit.

Hand I

Another tiny exercise in animation, nothing great but still quite helpful for me. Also, I have to say that I really like the look of the animated pencil drawings. There will definitely be more of the like in the future.

Hello Kitty

Another tiny (and still extremely clunky) animation.

Inori is one of the main characters from the comic series "KAE"/ "TEN by Martina Peters (who taught me inking, for which I am grateful to this day). In the second volume of "Kae" he was a bit unsuccessful frying an egg, so now he is practising.

Since I had absolutely no desire to do moving fabrics so early on, I picked his outfit from the beginning of the first volume of "Ten" (short sleeves). Initially, I also wanted to add his shoulder holster but as I was not exactly sure how to draw it, the idea got scrapped.

By the way, in order to understand the meaning of the titel one has to read the comics - I won't spoil it.

Little bat

Since I am currently trying to acquaint myself with animation, I figured that it would be best to try my hands at something very... very simple. After all, there is no point in starting with a more complex animation before you even know if things actually work the way you think they do. Well, it worked.

Oh, the bat is a brown long-eared one by the way.

Braune Wasserfransen

Yesterday my hometown's NABU-Fachgruppe Säugetierschutz (group for mammal protection) checked some bat quaters at the Brauhausberg (lit. brewhouse mountain). The area is usually closed for the public, thus making the event a rare opportunity to catch a glimpse of the local bats and to get an impression of their habitat.

I am by no means an expert on bats and therefore I tried to soak up as much information as possible. For example, here in this area we have four different species of bats: the Wasserfledermaus (Daubenton's bat, Myotis daubentonii), the Fransenfledermaus (Natterer's bat, Myotis nattereri), the Großes Mausohr (greater mouse-eared bat, Myotis myotis), and my current favourite, the Braunes Langohr (brown long-eared bat, Plecotus auritus). At the Brauhausberg we found specimens of all four, except for the greater mouse-eared bat.

Dauberton's bat or Natterer's bat:

Note that, if possible, bats should never be handled with bare hands as they may carry the rabies virus. Thus, wearing a pair of strong (!) gloves is always advisable.

Brown long-eared bat (in the front):

Finding the bats was not always easy, especially at the beginning I did not really know how one actually looks for a bat, but in the end even a bat novice like myself was able to find some. Also, next time I really need a stronger flashlight, preferably a forehead lamp to have my hands free.

Sewing projects past and present

Wolverine

Until late 2008 I had never been a needlewoman; I had learned a few basic stitches and other simple things in primary school but that was a long time ago and everything I had learnt back than has already been forgotten. Anyway, one day I decided to sew a life-sized wolverine, an animal I admire a lot, as a birthday present for a friend. In the end, I did not finish it in time (the present was finished in 2009 and about ten months late), partly due to me being a complete beginner, partly because everything was done by hand, and partly because of the details (for example, the wolverine has 20 individual claws). Pattern by me.

Useful things for the sewing box

Five years later, early in 2014, I began to entertain the idea of creating a cosplay costume of Lirenda, a character from the "Wars of Light and Shadow" by author and artist Janny Wurts. Although I have never been much of a fan of her, she seemed like a good choice due to her style of clothing which certainly is not plain.

So, I got out my sewing box, bought a proper sewing book and made a few small and simple pieces for my sewing box in order to practise different stiches etc. The result was not too bad, although far from great, given my experience with the needle (or lack thereof). The first piece was a bag for my needles (top left, closed, and bottom left, open), the second one was a pouch for the chalk (bottom right), and the last one was another pouch for buttons (top right). Patterns by me.

Skirt "Rathain"

However, soon after I realised that it is completely stupid attempting to sew a complicated dress when I had never made any kind of clothing before. Thus I decided to practise a bit more and began working on a skirt that was meant to be inspired by the country Rathain in the aforementioned series of books by Janny Wurts. Initially, I intended to adorn the green and black skirt with an embroidered kietienn, a small (fictive) leopard and heraldic animal of Rathain. But due to lack of experience I again decided to practise embroidering with a smaller project (see shoulder bag) and while working on this other piece I realised that the kietienn may not be such a great choise for the skirt. So, at the moment I am thinking about some other kind of embroidery work for the skirt that would still be in keeping with the Rathain theme.

Unfortunately, at the moment I am unable to make any pictures of the skirt thanks to the weather (not much sunlight).

Shoulder bag "Kietienn"

The design of the heraldic animal of Rathain is taken straight from the cover of the third volume of "Wars of Light and Shadow": "Warhosts of Vastmark", so the design is by Janny Wurts, not me. I merely made the stencil, traced it on the fabric with chalk and then got started. For the black outlines the stem stitch was used. What lies ahead of me next is doing the leopard's coat, which should keep me busy for quite some time.

More from Bateman's

The last of the frames I did for Bateman's. This one shows the entrance to the main building and is meant for the new German guide. Some of the proportions had to be altered though to make it fit the size of the paper. Also, while doing colour drawing was the obvious choice for the garden pictures, I decided to keep this one in black and white as a nod the drawings done for Rudyard Kipling by his father, John Lockwood Kipling.

One day I was approached by the head gardener who asked if I could draw a plant map for the Mulberry Garden which the visitors could carry around with them while walking through the garden. Since I had never done something like this before and always enjoy a new task, I agreed. The whole project proved to be a lot of fun but was also more work than one might think due to the large number of different plants and the high temperatures outside with no shade anywhere. At least now I know to put on sun glasses the next time I am going to scribble for a prolonged time on white paper while the sun is shining so brightly as the former reflects the latter just wonderfully.

On another occasion I was requested to do a very simple sign to let the visitors know that for so and so reasons the old watermill would be closed for a couple of days. It was really meant to be just a white sheet of paper with a bit of text but I thought there sure must be a way to make even a piece of information like that a bit interesting for the visitors. So I made a drawing of the closed entrance to the mill with some of the head gardener's chicken outside, and put it on the sign as well.

The reason for the chickens' presence in the picture is the fact that - when they are not busy begging the French tourists for croissants - they love trying to get inside the mill which they are not supposed to do for hygienic reasons as there is also flour and grain stored inside. This is why the mill does not have only a normal door but also an additional fence in front of it so that during the day the door can be kept open.

Beached

After having always seen only already dead or, as in one case, dying sharks down at the beach of Hastings, the events of yesterday provided quite a pleasant change.

The weather was just right for a peaceful and interesting walk along the sea, i.e. windy and rainy, and while I was looking for and picking up egg cases (got my first small-eyed ray (Raja microocellata)!), I came across a small, seemingly dead shark at Rock-a-Nore. It lay right at the edge of the water and when I got closer I recognised it as a small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula), who are pretty much the Bambis of the sea. It was about 25 to 30 cm in length, meaning that it was not fully grown yet as the species has an average length of 60 to 80 cm.

However, this time I was in for a surprise because suddenly the mouth of the small-spotted catshark, who had been completely still up until now, opened, giving me a not so small adrenalin rush. Due to its size, there was no need to bother with gloves for protection for which I was grateful as it spared me valueable time, even more so because I had no idea for how long the little fellow had been out of the water already. So I took the small shark and, remembering that one must not throw a shark or any other fish in the water, I walked it back into the sea. But first I hold it into an incoming wave, so that fresh water and oxygen could flow through its gills. Then, after a few more steps, I put it into the water.

However, just a few moments later the catshark landed on the beach again due to the strong inbound waves (it was high tide). This meant, I would have to get it into at least slightly deeper water which would help it to get underneath the waves. Another option would have been to get the poor fellow to the eastern end of the beach and into the water behind the concrete wall for the water was deeper there.

But I really wanted to avoid just dropping the shark into the water (again, because one must not do this), which I would have had to do in this case. And I did not exactly fancy walking on the wet (i.e. probably slippery) wall towards the edge of the water as I found the waves too intimidating. Safety first, after all.

So, I picked the fish up again and repeated what I had done before, holding it into an incoming wave. When I then placed it into the water, I did not release it just yet but moved it back and forth. This I did in case it may have been somewhat under shock after being thrown out of the sea, to give it a bit of time to collect itself. Otherwise it might have become a plaything of the waves all over again. I read about the moving back and forth part just recently in an article by the National Geographic ("How to Rescue a Great White Shark on the Beach") and it is "to prevent rigor mortis and circulate oxygenated blood".

Well, by now the small catshark had become rather lively, which seemed to be a good sign, so I let it go. Afterwards, I stayed a bit longer on the beach and for a quarter of an hour or maybe longer I kept my eyes open for the shark in case it might beach again. But I did not see the little one again, so hopefully it was able to get away and survived.

Blood moon and bloody tired

When shortly before 3 a.m. the alarm clock rang, I took the camera and the binocular and went into the garden. The weather was great and the sky looked as if it were alive with all the stars one could see up there (this was one of the moments when I am truly grateful for the fact that Hastings is such a relatively small town, meaning there is not so much light pollution here). I seated myself in a rocking chair and spent the next one and a half hour or so out there in the dark.

Luckily, it was only when the moon's usual bright white light returned that I realised how cold it actually was.

Great British Beach Clean 2015

The day before yesterday, on Saturday, I went to Birling Gap near Eastbourne to take part in the Great British Beach Clean event, organised by the Marine Conservation Society, that was held there. Birling Gap, the hamlet that is in the process of vanishing due to coastal erosion, is situated between the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head ans thus attracts a high number of visitors. This in turn means that, although it may appear beautiful at first sight, there is usually also a lot of rubbish to be found on the beach.

The area our group, consisting of approximately 15 people or so, cleaned was not exactly huge (we went along the red line in the picture below) as it was more important to clean a relative small beach section properly than to go over a bigger area and do only a half-hearted job. We were, however, advised to stay away from the edge of the cliff - although quite a lot of rubbish was lying around there - due to safety concerns.

After about an hour of picking up rubbish this is what we got:

And we still did not manage to collect everything lying around, not just because some of  the rubbish was too close to the cliff edge but also because it was very easy to overlook especially the smaller pieces (e.g. sweet wrappers) between the stones and pebbles. So, even if a number of other people had already covered a certain area, you could still find something that had escaped their eyes.

For the Beach Clean event today on Monday, at Rock-a-Nore in Hastings, we were a much smaller group (six people) and the pile of rubbish found on the beach was smaller as well - but still about 6 kg in toto. The things we picked up there were for the most pasrt small bits: plastic bottle caps, lollopop sticks, sweet wrappers, pieces of nets and strings.

Finds at the beach

When I went for a walk on the beach at Hastings yesterday, I came across a few bunches of seaweed. So, I took a closer look and found what I had been hoping for: egg cases (also known as mermaid's purse). I do not know to which shark species the egg cases belonged to, but could be catsharks maybe.

Although some of them were already empty (the pale ones), they were entwined with those where the sharks have not hatched yet. One can actually see the yolk and embryo very clearly inside one of the egg cases (second picture). Anyway, I could not take the egg cases home with me, so instead I returned them to the sea in order to protect them from drying out.

  

Less pleasant, however, was the finding of a number of fishing lines, complete with fishhooks and shiny bait (little plastic fish) and some sort of a weight (the oval grey piece at the bottom) which I all found on a short beach section at the most eastern end of the beach.

Since I almost always carry a pair of simple garden gloves with me for reasons like that, I picked the fishing lines and hooks up and disposed of them. It was not that long ago that I was able to witness how potentially deadly these things can be when a seagull mistook the bait for food and got entangled in the fishing line with the hook through its beak. The seagull was lucky though, thanks to some beach goers who freed it, but it was still a horrible sight.

All in the all, the beach at Hastings is place where one can always find all kinds of litter lying around. Not a place I would recommend to people with children.

Dodger the Dog

A private commission I worked on recently. It shows the pedigree English Labrador* Dodger whose "real name" shall not be disclosed in order to protect his dignity. The name Dodger, by the way, has nothing to do with his personality but was given to him by his owner in reference to the Jammie Dodgers biscuits.

* English Labdradors have shorter legs and are blockier in appearance compared to American Labradors.

The Bergische Kräher

Not that I am in any position to keep animals at the moment but should the opportunity ever arise I would love to have some chicken (and pigs and goats and turkeys...). They would have to be rare (i.e. endangered) breeds, of which there are, sadly, plenty. One of them is the Bergische Kräher (Bergische Crower), one of the oldest chicken breeds in Germany. There is something elegant and kind of aristocratic about their frame and plumage; the hens, for instance, have black and goldisch yellow feathers.

Having said that, the Bergische Kräher probably is the kind of chicken breed one shouldn't keep in an urban environment as these birds belong to the long crowers with the roosters' crow lasting up to 15 seconds. Although, personally I would much rather be woken up by this "opera chicken" than the noise of cars, construction work and drunk people on their way home from a night out.