Found a Great Website, the Sun is Rising, and Bevis Mumbles

First, I have to say that I found a wonderful website, devoted to animal and plant identification. I was looking for information about the Carbonated Swamp Warbler, one of those "mystery birds" painted by Audubon.  The bird was a one-of-a-kind, which Audubon claims to have collected and then painted.  He is the only person to have identified the little bird, and the only one to have illustrated it.  

The first place I went to was the New York Historical Society's collection of Audubon's original watercolors, sold to the society by Audubon's widow, after his death in the 1860's.  I read up on what the society had to say.  I wanted more information however, so I continued to search.

I read a segment of a treatise written by Alexander Wilson, a contemporary of Audubon and considered to be the father of American ornithology. In it I learned a bit about what others at the time thought about the bird Audubon allegedly found.  From there, I wound up at a very cool site, a blog set up and run by David Sibley.  Most of his large site is devoted to the sale of his wonderful guides, but his blogsite is a little different.  In his blog, Sibley posts identification hints, regular quizzes about identifying birds, and many of his thoughts and drawings.  I find that I can not stop scanning his posts.  You can find his blog here.  I can't say enough about it.

...On to other things.  As I drive across Caroline County every weekday morning, I am finding that at 6:30 am, I can finally once again see the countryside around me.  As I head away from home, the sky begins to change from deep purple to streaks of red and orange.  Driving down River Road has become a treat over the past few days, as the tide is low in the Choptank each morning right now, and the orange glow reflecting off of the flats is breathtaking through silhouetted trees.  I will have to paint it soon.

Yesterday, in the dark of early morning and for the second time in a week, I have almost been struck in the face by sex-crazed woodcocks in my backyard.  There seem to be a lot of woodcocks in the area this year.  I don't recall hearing or seeing this many of the fat little birds in years past.  I'll have to see if there is population studies being done, and if this cool little bird is on the upswing.  However, why I mention woodcocks again is something I noticed as the birds whizzed past my head.  As they approached out of the dark, I heard a weird noise that I had never noticed before.  From about five or six feet way, I could distinctly hear the woodcock "chattering" as it flew.  I've hear them twitter as they make great circling flights before in their mating display, but this was different.  Honesty, each time they passed, it sounded as though the cartoon characters Bevis and Butthead were mumbling to themselves.  I've never heard anything like it before.  I think this one little thing I've discovered now firmly cements the woodcock as my favorite bird.  

---