Note Type
Artist's NoteNote
Artwork done for Van Dusen's Mass Audubon residency project. Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary, Natick
BLUE SKIES OF AUTUMN October 15, 2015
After finishing my landscape painting of the Old Orchard, I pack up and head further down the trail.
Yellow-rumped warblers are moving thru the Old Orchard in good numbers, and I fill a page with them in my sketchbook. Though they are often the most common warbler in Spring and Fall migration, I never get tired of watching and drawing these birds!
Palm Warblers are moving through also, in slightly smaller numbers. They have a special fondness for ripe goldenrod, and I find more than a half dozen of them foraging in the unmowed field near South Street. I get good, close looks at these birds with my scope, and have a chance to study the variations in plumage. Most birds have rich mustard-yellow overtones, but a few are quite plain and gray, and some are bright below but dull above. All of them, however, dip their tails nervously, and when flushed, flash bright white spots in the outer tail feathers.