Back From Africa and some bird photos

Well I had a long, fun and productive trip to Africa, coming home with many reference photos (though completing zero art) and memories.  But I am HAPPY to be home (at least for a couple of weeks...LOL).

We saw LOTS of animals in SA! An incomplete list off of the top of my head includes Elephants, Impala, Springbok, Steenbok, Bushbuck, Greater Kudu, Common Duiker, Bush Duiker, Klipspringer, Eland, Blesbok, Gemsbok, Waterbuck, Blue Wildebeest, Black Wildebeest, Red Hartebeest, Burchell's Zebra, Mountain Zebra, White Rhino, African Buffalo, Warthogs, Bush Pigs, Hippos, Giraffes, Lions, Leopards, Side Striped Jackal, Black Backed Jackal, African Civet, Honey Badger, Spotted Hyena, lots of Mongoose of various types, various bats and tons of birds!

Here are a few photos of birds that we saw in South Africa throughout our trip.  South Africa is a premier birders spot with over 900 species calling it home for at least part of the year.  And while I am far from a hard core birder I do enjoy documenting and looking up the species that I saw.  Since I didn't even have a bird book for that part of the world (the cheapest one I saw was about $35) I had to sneak peeks at the bird books that were being sold in each and every gift shop to get my IDs :)

Yellow Hornbill - a VERY common species around Kruger National Park




This is a Crombec (not sure what type).  They have virtually no tail feathers to speak of, which makes them look quite funny.  Before I looked up the species I thought maybe his feathers had been pulled out by a predator, but nope... that is just how they are!




Collared Sun Bird - These little guys are Africa's version of a hummingbird, though they do not hover, they do LOVE nectar from aloe plants.  This is a male sitting on a Marloth Aloe flower. 

Greater Blue Eared Starling - South Africa has many starling species.  Several of them are incredibly iridescent (they look anywhere from black to green to blue depending on the light) from head to tail (not something that you can capture all that well in a photo).  These guys are very common, but nevertheless the beauty of them is something I never got tired of.

Many would consider the Lilac Breasted Roller as one of Africa's more beautiful (and trademark) birds.  I never did get the 'killer' shot of one that I wanted but got a few shots I can't complain too much about.

White Capped Shrike - These little guys flock together and like to talk a lot.   I think their fluffy look is very cute :)

Pied Kingfisher hovering above a river.  I WISH I could have changed the lighting situation on this photo to illuminate his head better, but it is still a neat thing to see.  I also got photos of a brown hooded kingfisher and a giant kingfisher.



New image of the Kingfisher

Someone pointed out an inacuracy with my kingfisher board, in that the common kingfisher has very bright feathers on the middle of his back which would be visible from the angle I drew him.  I was happy with the way I had it, but after looking at many photos the inaccuracy started to bother me ;)  So I went back and reworked his back feathers to be brighter.

The King Finished

I finished up "A King On His Throne" - not a huge difference from below but you might notice some slight varations in the dark in the background now and slight touch ups on the bird and branch.  You can view a zoomified version (full 100% view) at: http://www.aphelionart.com/zmkingfisher.html

A Few Backyard Birds

Well I do call this blog art and photography, but so far it has mostly been about art, and honestly will most likely continue to mostly be about art... but who says I can't toss in some photography every now and again.

Today I went up to Red Rocks in search of some environmental aspects for my next scratchboard.  I will be using a zoo animal as my primary subject, but since he is on an artifical platform I needed some natural elements to put him into the wild in my art.  Anyways I stopped at the trading post, where they have some bird feeders in their back area.  The primary birds I sighted in attendance were magpies, scrub jays, dark-eyed juncos (all colors forms), a few house finches and chickadees and one spotted towhee and one orange-shafted flicker.

Slate colored Junco

Chickadee

Pink Sided color Junco

Spotted Towhee

Western Scrub Jay