Kit is a writer and an artist who adores living in Colorado. Whether she's hiking in the mountains or walking the prairies, she's always watching the wildlife in order to learn more about the natural world.
It’s been over two weeks since our neighbors put out headless decoys to keep the Canada geese off their lawn. For those wondering if it works, the answer is: sort of.
But before I tell you what I’ve seen, here’s something interesting that I’ve learned since I first posted about this. The geese are headless on purpose. I don’t know where they heard about it, but the neighbors were told a yard littered with plastic geese corpses would scare the geese away. So that’s why the heads are not attached to the bodies (not because the kids were lazy, as I had assumed).
While there haven’t been many geese in the yard, the couple that first wondered about the local serial killer keeps returning. They show up daily and have even been right in amongst all the decoys, plucking grass. Apparently, they are attached to their territory and a slew of bodies won’t change their minds.
On the other hand, we haven’t had any flocks of geese in the last two weeks. So it’s a partial win for the neighbors, although I think over time the geese will be less and less afraid until they ignore the decoys entirely.
An unexpected side effect is that they have completely bewildered the crows. Just this morning I saw a crow hopping around one of the decoys, clearly trying to figure out what it was and why it was there. It’s main thought was: why do people put out plastic replicas of food? And whenever I think of wax fruit, I am right there with him.
Our new house is on a lake, and it is turning out to be a bird watching paradise. We live on the plains in Colorado, so the water is a wildlife magnet. I see more species of birds while eating breakfast than I used to see on an hour-long prairie walk. Whenever I pass a window, I look out just in case there’s something new to see. That’s how the decapitated decoys caught my eye.
At first, I thought the pair of Canada geese that have been feeding in our yard daily were taking a nap. I could see their big brown bodies laying in the grass. What puzzled me was that they didn’t have their heads tucked under their wings. They were on the ground too, as if the geese had stretched their necks out and were using the grass as a pillow. But as I got closer I saw this wasn’t right because there was no neck between their heads and bodies.
WT…? oh. It’s plastic.
They weren’t geese at all. They were plastic decoys. Our backyard is a point of land that we share with our neighbors and their kids love to run barefoot through the grass. Naturally, the neighbors would like to keep the geese (and more specifically, their poop) out of the yard. So they bought these decoys as deterrents, then had the kids put them out.
Here are five of the “geese” in situ. You can see that the kids made an effort to cover the whole yard.
The kids scattered the decoys, dropping the heads next to the bodies instead of attaching them. I thought this was amusing because it seemed to me that the geese, who aren’t at all afraid of our dog, were not likely to be fooled. Besides, most of the year, these geese are gregarious, gathering together in huge flocks. I expected the geese to be drawn to other geese. Safety in numbers! Then I watched our pair the first time they encountered the decoys.
Both geese stood on our side of the point and honked anxiously to one another. They eyed the bodies lying in the grass and stretched their necks to get a better view without getting any closer. You could practically hear them talking.
Him: What the hell is that?
Her: Looks like that flock we saw earlier.
Him: Maybe, but what is wrong with them?
Her: *pause while she gives the prone geese a good look* I’ve never seen anyone sleep like that.
Him: I don’t think they’re sleeping.
Her: Of course they’re sleeping. They aren’t moving.
Him: They aren’t sleeping. Can’t you see? Their heads and bodies aren’t connected!
Her: What? There’s a serial killer here? You told me this was a good neighborhood!
Him: It is a good neighborhood. Look at all the grass and water! But we better not go over there. Just in case.
*both head nonchalantly in the other direction while keeping one eye on the bodies*
Our bewildered pair of geese, looking carefully at everything. Sketch by Kit Dunsmore
They stayed on our side of the point, nibbling grass and keeping a sharp eye on the decapitated decoys in case they turned out to be zombies. While they weren’t driven away completely, they definitely stayed out of our neighbor’s part of the yard. I am astonished that this worked. I read up on Canada geese and realized that this is the one time of year when decoys might drive geese away. It’s spring. The geese are pairing off to nest and are very territorial. Of course, thanks to some lazy children, it may just be that they think a mad serial killer lives at our neighbor’s house, in which case the decoys could work year round.
Personally, I hope they keep coming around despite the bodies. They are fun to draw.
Whether it’s bitter winter weather or just an overly rainy day, you can’t always be outside. I can’t, anyway. My body doesn’t deal with cold well, but I don’t like withdrawing from nature, either. So I find ways to keep birding even though I can’t be outside as much as I would like.
1) Keep a yard list. We have feeders in our yard so I can watch birds by looking out my window. A surprising variety of birds (39 species) visit our suburban yard, and I wouldn’t have realized it if I hadn’t taken the time to really look. Some of the more surprising birds that I’ve seen in our yard: green-tailed towhee, Steller’s jay, great horned owl and common nighthawk. Even on the days that it’s just the usual crowd (house finches, goldfinches, chickadees, and robins), I take the time to look closely. You never know when someone interesting is hiding in the flock.
Taking time to draw the birds in our yard is another way I enjoy nature in winter. (Drawing by Kit Dunsmore)
2) Use eBird to identify local hot spots. While I am waiting for better weather, I try to find new places to bird. The eBird website is a great resource for finding hot spots and for locating rare birds in the area. Thanks to eBird and other online resources, I’ve seen a Harris’s hawk, greater white-fronted geese, and a black-and-white warbler this winter. I’ve gone looking for common redpolls and loons without success, but saw lots of other birds in the process.
3) Study up. I belong to several Facebook birding groups, including Raptor ID and the Colorado Bird Photography group. Both are teaching me how to identify species I see irregularly or have never seen at all by providing photos and talking about field marks. I look at the photos and guess at the species, then look to see what the photographer says. Sometimes the photographer has the ID wrong, so any time I am uncertain, I get out my field guide for help.
4) Study up some more. Being able to recognize a bird’s song can help you identify it as well as locate it, so I am using Larkwire to learn more bird songs. This is an online game that makes memorizing different bird songs more fun. It also includes beautiful photos of each bird which helps you learn their appearance as well as their sounds.
5) Research birding vacation destinations. When it’s too cold to watch birds, I read about them. I just finished Noah Strycker’s Birding Without Borders, and his stories about birding all over the world are guaranteed to get you excited about traveling to see new birds. I also love Bird Watcher’s Digest which includes articles about domestic and international birding hotspots.
This winter, we’ve had an unusual visitor to northeastern Colorado: a Harris’s hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus). Normally a resident of southernmost Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, this chocolate-brown and chestnut-red hawk is far from home. Back in December, a friend told me about this vagrant* after the hawk had been reliably sighted roosting in trees belonging to a recycling center adjacent to a local natural area. Having only seen Harris’s hawks in captivity, I was eager to see one in the wild so I could add it to my life list.
It took me four separate trips to the natural area in order to spot the hawk. When Guy Turenne, photographer, said the same thing (“four visits before I saw him”), I jokingly named the bird “Four Visit Harry.” That is how I think of him, even though I don’t know whether the bird is male or female.
Four Visit Harry, the Harris’s hawk living in Fort Collins, CO (photo by Guy Turenne)
My weekend trips to see Harry were both several hours long, and I met lots of friendly birders who like me did not get to see him then. I made a mid-day stop at the natural area on a weekday and had the place to myself. Again, I failed to see Harry, but was encouraged by several false alarms. The first was a dark shape in one of the trees others identified as a favorite perch for the hawk. I saw it a few minutes after arriving and thought “gotcha!” only I was wrong. As I got closer, the “bird” climbed down the branch, morphing into a squirrel. As I walked the trail, I spotted red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) overhead, but they didn’t fool me for long.
On the way back, I again got a “That’s it!” shock when a hawk with white on the tail erupted out of the grass ahead of me. Fortunately, I got a really good look at it, even though there was a tree between us most of the time, and I realized at once it was missing the other key markings — the nearly dark brown back with red-brown wing patches. So I knew I was looking at a juvenile northern harrier (Circus cyaneus) and not a Harris’s hawk within a few minutes. Still, I found it exciting rather than disappointing. It was the closest I’ve ever been to a harrier. I had to go home for lunch and thought: This is a great day for hawks. So I ran some Christmas errands, then went back to the natural area for the fourth time.
Diagram by Kit Dunsmore
After scanning the big patch of trees in the recycling area and seeing nothing, I took the trail that ran behind the center. There, I met two young men with binoculars and a spotting scope. For the first time, my question (“Have you seen the Harris’s?”) was met with a yes. They pointed back to the trees I had just scanned and then I saw it, a dark blob with red-brown wing patches, sitting lower in the trees than I had originally looked. It flew off only a few minutes later, so I had only just caught it. The birders asked me if it was a lifer (if I would count this as my first Harris’s hawk for the list of all the bird species I’ve seen in my life). I was excited to be able to say it was. What I didn’t realize is not everyone would agree with me about that.
A bird like this Harris’s hawk is often referred to as “vagrant” or “accidental.” Usually, birds far from home get lost during migration, blown off course by a storm, or losing their way because they are inexperienced or sick. But Harris’s hawks don’t migrate. They are considered permanent residents of their range, so any individual very far outside that range is hard to explain. In fact, National Geographic’s Complete Birds of North America is rather adamant that a Harris’s hawk out of its territory escaped from or was released by a falconer. Period.
After I read that, I realized my “lifer” was in jeopardy. The American Birding Association (ABA) has rules for keeping a life list, and one of those rules is that the bird you count can’t have been transported by humans to the place where you saw it. Understandably, they consider this an unnatural situation, even though the bird is flying free at the time of sighting. If Four Visit Harry is a falconer’s bird, then I can’t count him. But there’s no way for me to tell if he is or isn’t. And I confess I find myself miffed at the thought that someone who trained, maybe even raised, a hawk for falconry would release it nearly 700 miles from its natural habitat. Surely falconers are more responsible and ethical than that.
Harris’s hawks do not migrate, but they must disperse after fledging, which is the one time they might move into new territory. eBird maps show these hawks are being spotted much farther north in New Mexico and Texas then their historical range allows for, and I doubt all of these are lost falconry birds. There are even rare individuals who have been seen as far north as Montana.
I would rather think these out-of-range hawks are pioneers moving out into new territory, that Four Visit Harry is a maverick with wanderlust, rather than some falconer’s escaped bird. But I have no proof either way. Maybe he did hitch a ride here, but Harry is making a living on the prairie despite being away from home and without other hawks to help him hunt. (Harris’s hawks hunt in groups.) And my sighting of him (though it required some help from other birders) felt natural to me. Fortunately, I am not actually submitting my life list to the ABA. I am keeping it for my own pleasure. Considering our long and colorful history, I’ve decided that Four Visit Harry is a lifer.
*Vagrant is one of the terms birders use to describe birds far out of their recognized range. I prefer the term “maverick.”
The Swetsville Zoo in Timnath, CO is actually a sculpture garden showcasing the wild imagination of Bill Swets. Filled with creatures made from metal scraps including parts from cars, tractors, and motorcycles, this “zoo” includes dinosaurs, birds, insects, reptiles, dragons, even people and flowers. The two things all Swets’ creations have in common: they are all made from recycled materials and they all make you smile.
The first thing I saw when we arrived should have told me what was in store. I’m not sure if you have to keep your dinosaurs under 5 mph or you drive under 5 mph because of the dinosaurs. Either way, I was in.
There were LOTS of dinosaurs. This was one of my favorites (complete with a bird’s nest in its mouth):
There were quite a few dragons as well.
While I liked his ants and other smaller insects, his giant praying mantis was my favorite.
I found his birds charming, too.
Last but not least, here’s something that reminded me of the goblins from the movie Labyrinth (note the little driver in the mechanized monster’s open mouth):
All the articles I found online talk about the looming demise of this unusual garden. Big box stores have been built right next door and there are plans for more development in the near future. But the Swetsville Zoo is still open (no entry fee! Donations welcome) for your enjoyment and I am hoping it will last. Get there while you can.
Paper collage fascinates me. Most styles of quilting are a form of collage — putting together pieces of many different fabrics to build up a pattern or picture — but the limitations caused by the need to sew seams* keeps me from achieving the truly detailed results I want from my animal art. While looking at animal pieces by other art quilters, I stumbled across a paper-collage dog portrait and got curious. Here are the artists I discovered while surfing the web.
My favorite is Dawn Maciocia, who lives in Scotland. Her lively animal portraits balance realism with whimsy and her use of line suggests that she can draw quite well. Her subjects are mostly mammals and birds, with an emphasis on the wild. To get a sense of how complex and time-consuming her process is, check out this short video:
Laura Yager’s work is also whimsical, but much more in-your-face. She strives to make the world a better place with her “happy art” and her neon animals do the trick. Her strongly colored papers are also high in pattern making her work more like a quilt than any of the other artists listed here.
Paper collage by Laura Yager
The work of Samuel Price is much more realistic, though his realism is noticeably pixellated. Using pieces of photographic images, he builds up a new photographic image with the fuzzy edges of a newspaper photo. His main subjects are dogs and horses.
Callie by Samuel Price. Look closely at this dog’s ear and nose. The peachy parts are built up from photos of human body parts.
Last, but definitely not least, is Elizabeth St. Hilaire. Her charming art work includes goats wearing blossoms, sheep highlighted with rainbow colors, and tiny birds perched on flower stems. She uses papers with both printed and hand-written text as well as painted and color papers to achieve her naturalistic animals.
Field of Sweet Dreams by Elizabeth St. Hilaire
Who did I miss? Let me know in the comments.
*I know I could be fusing (gluing) the fabric instead of sewing it, but that’s not really my thing.
In a world where everyone carries a camera everywhere they go, taking the time to stop and draw the natural world can seem like an old-fashioned and even pointless pastime. Snapping a picture takes a few seconds. Drawing takes a few minutes at least, and a lot longer in some cases. Besides, a drawing is less accurate than a photo and can’t capture all the information a photo can. So why bother to draw?
1) It forces us to slow down. This supposed drawback to drawing is actually one of the benefits. When I draw, I am in one spot longer than I would be if I just took a photo and moved on. As a result, I get to see more and learn more about the animals I watch. Because I spent nearly an hour sketching at a prairie dog town, I got to see a burrowing owl chase a prairie dog that got too close to its den. Similarly, I got to see barn swallows feed their chicks while I was drawing their nest.
My nature journal entry with observations of how the parents feed their young (drawings by Kit Dunsmore)
2) It makes us really look at what is in front of us. On a hike, I sat down to draw a wildflower so I would be better able to identify it when I got home. Shortly after I started, I realized what I thought was eight petals was really four large overlapping lobed petals. I would never have been able to identify this evening primrose if I hadn’t taken the time to draw it.
Drawing by Kit Dunsmore
3) It increases our appreciation of the natural world. In our day-to-day observations of plants and animals, we tend to gloss things over. We see a bird, think “That’s a robin” and we’re done. In fact, birds vary from one another as much as humans do, as I discovered when I was painting the barn swallows that grew up on our porch this summer. Every time I draw the horse skull I own, I am in awe of the amount of detail and complexity in the bony part of a horse’s head. Nearly every drawing of nature I do leads me to a greater appreciation of the wonder all around me.
Painting by Kit Dunsmore
4) It helps us to be in the moment and to remember what we saw and heard. Flipping through my sketch books, I remember vividly where and when I made a drawing, other things that went on around me, the individual animals I drew, even the people I was with. When we draw, we can look like we are removed from our surroundings, but it makes us aware in a special way, one we can appreciate when we look at our drawings later.
5) It is a great opportunity to improve our drawing skills. I have drawn cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens for the first time in my life this year. My brain thinks it knows what these animals look like, but it is wrong. Seriously wrong. This is the essence of drawing from life: getting past our know-it-all brains, connecting our hand movements directly to what our eyes see. Taking the time to draw the world around us gives us more practice developing these skills.
A few of my more successful goat sketches (drawings by Kit Dunsmore)
