Roseate Spoonbill chick Carving 120

For late spring and early summer I wanted to make a baby bird, and I've been wanting to make a hatchling of a wading bird such as an Ibis or Spoonbill.  More than a year ago I bought a cute antique metal basket that was painted pink, and I thought it would be cute to put a baby Roseate Spoonbill on a soft nest in that basket. Kind of an Easter idea originally or a gift for a child. Im not sure if I have the basket still, and moved to the idea of putting the chick carving in a natural nest and place it in a mangrove tree to replicate how Roseate Spoonbills nest. After I was finished with the carving I made the branch nest from branches of the invasive Brazilian Pepper tree. Here's a few photos of the finished piece. 

Hatchling Roseate Spoonbill, carving 120.

Made of basswood, a glass eye, and acrylic paint. 

David K. Kramer June 2019

Here is the Roseate Spoonbill carving in its Brazilian Peppertree nest. I added 

some dried seagrass and seaweed too, like some of the nest sometimes have.

Another shot of the Roseate Spoonbill hatchling. These birds really do look like dinosaurs in many ways. But while painting it, I really felt like it was a little scary in a dinosaur like way. 

Cape May Warbler Carving 119

Spring is in full swing! And its already HOT here in South Florida...
Last month was the Spring migration for most birds here, whether they spent the winter here or further south, they leave and head back north. One bird which spends its Winters in Carribean, and the very south tip of Florida, is the Cape May Warbler.  In late May a large wave of them along with other warblers, vireos, etc, pass through Florida; and the best part about it is they're in their bright spring plumage!! I was really happy to see a very bright male with dark rufous cheeks, much darker than I've seen before ...though it might have been the lighting. He was with a flock of 12 American Redstarts, and a few Northern Parula, at the Morikami Museam and Japanese Garden in Delray Beach, FL.  It's a great place for warblers because of the variety of trees, native plants, and water features. If you find a fruiting fig (Ficus sp.) around this time of year, you're sure to see a variety of birds eating the fruits or insects on the fruits. So after I saw this warbler I was really inspired to carve him.  I had been wanting to carve on for a while now too!

Me, at work, with the almost finished Cape May Warbler. I have always tried to make each of my birds true to size. I research measurements taken from banding birds and use them as a guide when carving. 

The Cape May Warbler is the first bird I've made with an accessory. This is the fruit of a Shortleaf Fig, Ficus citrifolia, made out of wire, wood, and painted with acrylic paint. 

The finished spring male Cape May Warbler, sitting on my faux bois table from Martha Stewart. 

The faux bois planters behind it are all planted with Florida native plants, that area native to the South Florida counties. 

Another view of the finished Cape May Warbler and ficus fruit. 

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your spring and a very safe and happy summer. 

Thanks for visiting!

Snowy Plover Carving 118, Part 2

Welcome! Last time we went on a field trip to Lovers Key State Park to look for Snowy Plovers.  I was so happy to find one, and decided it would be my next carving.


The Snowy Plover is resident here in Florida, but is usually just found along the Gulf Coast side. There are a few subspecies of Snowy Plover. Ours is sometimes referred to as the Cuban Snowy Plover, Charadrius nivosus tenuirostris. It is found along the Gulf Coast of Florida, some Caribbean Islands, Northern Yucatan Peninsula, and Northern Venezuela. It is paler above than the other subspecies, the Western Snowy Plover, in North America.

I always start by creating a template based on scientific measurements from specimens as close to the birds Im carving. So I had to find measurement from Florida birds. Usually these are in old books that record the measurements of the bill, wing, tail, tarsus, and toe, in millimeters (which is so helpful!)

Carving out the shape from a block of wood, and using the template as a guide. 

So its almost entirely shaped. this is where I will do more detail work and lots of sanding!

Fast forward, to after the bird was finished being painted. The construction of legs was a new thing for me. Usually I just use a dowel, and shape it a bit, but this time I made legs out of wire and wood. Its a very delicate process but it looks so much better! I painted the little mound of sand (made out of wood) to look like the sand at Lovers Key State Park. Also notice how it only has 3 toes; some shorebirds don't have a hind toe, such as the Sanderling!

 

A day at the beach! This is in Destin, Florida on the Florida Panhandle. The finished Snowy Plover with my hatchling Black Skimmer, and a Least Tern in the background. I did see quite a few Least Terns, and a nice amount of shorebirds, but no Snowy Plovers here. This was mid-May so some of the shorebirds were in breeding plumage, which was neat to see!

Snowy Plover Carving 118, part 1

Its almost summer and its already HOT! A good time to go to the beach and enjoy a day in the sand and water, but of course always be respectful of the wildlife around you, and ones that share the ocean with you. In Florida and many other beaches this means sharing the sand with nesting birds! Like my next carving, the Snowy Plover.

In Florida we have Snowy Plovers year round on our Gulf Coast beaches.  They enjoy the calm waters and white sand found along the gulf. Because of this desirable habitat, to both humans and birds, it also attracts millions of people!! Many of which do not know that the birds here depend on these precise beaches for their lives.  Crowded beaches, pollution, pets, off-road vehicles, have all greatly reduced population of nesting shorebirds and seabirds. This is from nest being destroyed, trampled on, or stressing of the adult birds causing them to abandon their nest. The Snowy Plover is no exception and has become rare and endangered, even locally extinct on some beaches.

On my last birthday I went to Lovers Key State Park in Fort Myers beach to look for some. I had seen on at a nearby beach 2 years before, and wanted to find and photograph more.

It was a windy and rainy day, and I walked the entire length of the beach that faces the gulf and did not see a single Snowy Plover. While walking a Wilsons Plover did land just about 10 feet away from me though; it was quite random but I was happy!

I then went to walk a wooded path and came out to an inlet where the water was much calmer and there was a flock of shorebirds in the distance. I walked toward them along the upper part of the beach, but the flock kept having to go further away as they were being followed by clueless tourist... Eventually the flock flew and came closer to me. The flock was mostly Sanderlings, a few Ruddy Turnstones, and thankfully(!!!) one Snowy Plover.  I was able to get a few okay pictures of it while sitting still on the upper part of the shore, and it even came quite close to me on its own. Eventually, more people came and the plover flew across the inlet and out of sight... Im just thankful I got to see one, and for a moment!

The northern end of Lovers Key State Park. The Snowy Plover is in the picture, but its plumage blends it perfectly into its environment. It just goes to show how it is completely evolved for this area. 

The Snowy Plover, it spotted something tasty!

Another photo of the bird seen today. Its quite camouflage and if it wasn't with the flock of white Sanderling I probably wouldn't have found it!

Im so glad to have found it, but really it's all thanks to the conservationist and volunteers that make a lot of effort to protect these birds.  Without them Im sure I wouldn't have found this one. 

Thanks for stopping by, Part 2 is coming next with carving this charming little bird!

Red-bellied Woodpecker Carving 117

Hello! Sorry I skipped my previous 2 carvings, and my first carvings of 2019.

Carving 115 which I started in December 2018 and finished in January 2019, was a Merlin. I had seen a few during fall migration in Key West and had never done any falcon or hawk carvings before so it was a great learning lesson. It was also such a pleasure seeing these Merlins soaring and stooping over the island, especially the one I saw in a very fast dive over Fort Zachary Taylor State Park!  I think it must have been chasing some Palm Warblers as they were abundant at this time. I will have to make a blog post for it in the future!

Carving 116, is a Least Grebe, I saw on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, in the duck ponds close to the Atlantis Resort. I carved it out hollow so it can float, plus made legs and feet out of bamboo. I was initially going to make it as a kind of toy to play with me niece and nephew at the beach, but it turned out to be a little too nice and a little delicate, so it sits on a plexiglass stand in my room now.

Carving 117 is today's post: Red-bellied Woodpecker

This is the most common woodpecker in South Florida and can easily be spotted around neighborhoods and parking lots planted with scattered trees. It is also common across much of the Eastern United States, with its range expanding north. In South Florida these birds are sometimes considered a subspecies or race: Melanerpes carolinus perplexus. These birds differentiate in having a paler forehead, more black on the tail, the white bars on back larger than black, and smaller in size. Also the South Florida birds eyes are more brown than black. So, I models my carving after this race as these are the birds I see here at home in South Florida.

Red-bellied Woodpecker carving, after its been shaped and sanded, this is the time I do adjusting to the carving and any minor details before painting. 

Red-bellied Woodpecker, being painted at the Palm Beach Gardens studio today. So you can see the back is a little more black than white, the tail is almost entirely black, and the forehead of the male is not entirely red.

Red-bellied Woodpecker finished carving, on a Sabal Palm. The legs and feet are made of wire and wood, and two of the toes create and upside down V so that the bird can hang on a nail, or rough bark of a tree in this case. 

Red-bellied Woodpecker finished carving. These photos were taken at Frenchman's Forest Natural Area, in Palm Beach Gardens. It's a nice local park that has lots of native species.

A side view of the carving. Here you can see how the tail of woodpeckers brace the tree, helping them climb and balance as they peck and hammer at the bark. The tail feathers are strong and stiff! I think if I was to work more on this bird, I would have made him a little slimmer. He's a little too fluffed up for this hot climate. 

A final view of the finished Red-bellied Woodpecker carving, resting on a dead branch of a live oak. 

Thanks for reading! And to see more of my work / process please see my Instagram: @pondcypressstudio

Bahama Woodstar Carving 114

Whenever family visits, a great thing to do is thing to do here in South Florida, is to take a cruise!  This is for many reasons: having everyone doing activities together, eating meals together, exploring new places on and off the ship, no cellphone service (so people are more engaged in the moment), and just having fun doing things and making memories!

A secret (or maybe not so secret?) is that birding can be really good when going on cruises!  Even as the ship is going over the ocean in autumn or spring, you can see hundreds of birds migrating, and a lot of birds land on the ship.  I have seen a variety of warblers "fallout" on the ship itself, and even an American Kestrel perched on  a ship flagpole hunting warblers.  ...and this is far from any visible land!  One time while we were on a transatlantic cruise in the spring going from Miami to Funchal (a Portugese Island) we were 2 days already sailing over the open ocean and I was still seeing songbirds flying by! Of course, you do see oceanic birds sometimes, and a few of the birds I've seen are lifers like the Masked Booby and White-tailed Tropicbird, and then some more familiar ones like Royal Terns chasing flying fish and a Red-breasted Merganser speeding by the ship. 

When you finally get to the destination there is, of course, the native species.  Many of the Caribbean Islands have endemic species.  On this trip we stopped at 2 Bahama Islands: Coco Cay (which is Royal Carribean's private island and part of the Berry Island chain) and Nassau. I was on the search for new birds, and to see what kind of birds could be spotted during the short time on the island.  My focus in the Bahamas was the Bahama Woodstar hummingbird!

Me in my beach gear.  There was a cute sign with a Laughing Gull painted on it. 

The Laughing Gull is the most common gull around here and Im glad they painted it, instead of a generic gull. The people didn't heed the sign, and even if they don't feed them directly there is a lot of dropped food anyway!

Walking down the beach, away from all the beach parties, and in a quieter area I found a small path. Which had various migratory warblers and some local birds.  I saw lots of Bahama Strongbark trees blooming, and some with lots of pretty red berries. I saw in a shady spot and watched. 

Bahama Strongbark, Bourreria succulenta, blooms and berries.

 I luckily did see a Bahama Woodstar! I didn't get a clear picture of it; and it didn't stop moving for a moment, plus my camera is old and slow to focus. It was visiting each little flower and moved along silently and quickly!

Just a view of the adjacent beach where the little hummingbird was seen. Once I got on the ship that evening, I used my sketches and started making a draft-template of the bird I wanted to carve. 

Fast-forward to my Bahama Woodstar carving. He's sitting on a wood finial that is supposed to resemble the wood of a Bahama Strongbark with the species of lichens found on them. I really like making these carvings because they are the ultimate souvenir for me.  I think of the carving as the actual bird I saw that day. 

Bahama Woodstar

Calliphlox evelynae 

carving number 114

finished Oct. 2018

photographed at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens,

in Coral Gables, FL

Thanks as always for stopping by!

Least Tern Carving 113

Its mid-fall 2018 now and the holiday season is starting!  Snow birds (actual birds and people from up north) are here in South Florida, and its busy as usual!  There's lots of hustle and bustle here in Broward County with the elections recently, (I Voted!!) and many other changes: large shopping complexes (Dania Point just opened) and work on I-95. Palm Warblers are here, and most of the other Neotropical Migrants have passed through Florida already. The Least Terns have left Florida and are now along the northern coast of South America.  Here is my Least Tern carving, number 113, that I finished in September when the final Least Terns were still here. This is the subspecies Sternula antillarum antillarum, which breeds along the Atlantic Coast of North America.

It's made out of basswood, and painted with acrylic paint. It has black German glass eyes, and metal legs, and sculpted resin feet. The base is also basswood and painted to replicate the sand at Dania Beach, where I saw this particular bird. 

Wing inserts and details of the painting.

Finished Least Tern on the bridge of the South Skyway Fishing Pier, over Tampa Bay. 

Though Least Terns can be seen here they are much less common than Royal and Sandwich Terns, which can be seen in the hundreds some days. 

Least Tern, another view.

Have a safe, happy, and wonderful Holiday Season to all of you readers!

Thanks for stopping by! ~David