We had an amazing first week at our Wild at Art Camp. Our theme was Natural Connections and the campers learned and created art focused on the web that connects plants and animals.
Moment #1: The Caterpillar Lab
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Moment #2: Creating marbled paper (sumagashi) and birch tree paintings
Moment #3: Using found materials to build an eight foot wide eagles nest
Moment #4: Collecting natural materials for art
Collecting natural materials for art projects
Collecting natural materials for art projects
Moment #5: Warming up with charcoal before some awesome art projects
Our teaching artist, Katie Buchanan, and camper Cora warming up for the art activity with charcoal
Camper David and Liam having fun drawing with charcoal
Moment #6: Getting up close with dragonflies and other critters in the meadow
Sean Kent, the Wild at Art Camp director, shows camper Janek, Handel, Cooper, and Thomas, a dragonfly from the meadow.
Camper Janek, Cooper, and Thomas catching critters in the meadow
Moment #7: Creating art everywhere, even on the sidewalk
Moment #8: Watercolors using water from our pond full of tadpoles
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Moment #9: Going behind the scenes in the art museum and creating Charlie Harper Inspired art based on their up close tour
This is from a series of posts by MABA resident artist Barry Van Dusen
Mid-May, 2015
By the middle of May in Massachusetts, large numbers of migrant wood warblers are streaming through the state on their way to breeding grounds here or further north. It all happens so quickly, and I experience a manic urge to try and get it all down while it lasts. So many birds, so little time! Instead of trying to do a finished watercolor with a full background of each of the species I encounter, I take a different approach.
I purchase several 9”x12” sketchbooks loaded with heavy watercolor paper made by Stillman and Birn. My logic is that I can use these in field or studio to do quicker bird portraits with minimal background elements or no background at all. The heavy, archival stock will give me the option to remove and frame some of the pages later. Here is a selection from the Mass Audubon properties I visited through May.
Nashville Warbler, Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, 9″ x 12″
Chestnut-sided Warbler, Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, 9″ x 12″
Blackburnian Warbler, High Ledges Wildlife Sanctuary, 5.5″ x 8″
Myrtle Warbler, Lake Wampanoag Wildlife Sanctuary, 8.5″ x 12″
Canada Warbler, High Ledges Wildlife Sanctuary, 9″ x12″
Black-throated Blue Warbler, Eagle Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, 9″ x 12″
This is from a series of posts by MABA resident artist Barry Van Dusen
Eagle Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, Holden, MA on May 11, 2015
It’s a warm, humid morning at Eagle Lake Wildlife Sanctuary in Holden. From the trailhead (as I’m applying bug repellent and sunscreen), I can hear black-throated blue, black-throated green and pine warblers, ovenbirds, a scarlet tanager and a red-eyed vireo.
Black-throated Blue in Birch, in Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook, 9″ x 12″
As I hike in along the Appleton Loop Trail, it becomes obvious that black-throated blues are the most abundant warblers at this site. Every quarter mile or so, I encounter another BTB singing from the sweet birches that arch above the mountain laurel thickets.
Black-throated Blue in Song, watercolor on Arches Fidelis (en tout cas), 9″ x 8.5″
Pausing along the trail, a female Black-throated Blue circles and scolds me – I must be near a nest, so I move on…
sketchbook study, 3″ x 5″
Crossing over Asnebumskit brook on the pipeline right-of-way, I notice that the streambed is looking quite dry for early May. It’s been an exceptionally dry spring so far.
The Asnebumskit Loop Trail skirts down along the stream, and as I near the area where the brook flows into Eagle Lake, I hear the distinctive notes of a blue-gray gnatcatcher (Peterson used the word “peevish” – the perfect adjective to describe their voice!)
field sketchbook page, 9″ x 12″
The small plot of forest here has the feeling of a wet bottomland – just the right habitat for these birds. Sure enough, the pair is building a nest high in a red maple branch directly over the water! I watch as one member of the pair gathers the sticky webbing from a caterpillar nest and takes it to the nest site.
Gnatcatcher in red Maple, in Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook, 9″ x 12″
On my way out of the Sanctuary, I park my car and stroll out onto the causeway between Stump Pond and Eagle Lake. It’s a pleasant spot, and I admire the soft colors of the early spring foliage across the water. Looking down, I see sunfish guarding nests in the shallow water along the shoreline. The red spot on their gill covers identifies them as pumpkinseeds. The males are in bright, breeding colors – their fin margins (which they wave like fan dancers) are a striking aqua blue!
We have exciting news for this summer’s Wild at Art Camp…The award winning, innovative, engaging, and awe-inspiring Caterpillar Lab is coming to camp during the Natural Connections 1 (July 6 to 10) and Taking Flight (July 13 to 17) week.
By incorporating a visit from the Caterpillar Lab with the Wild at Art Camp experience, campers will have a strong foundation to experience powerful moments of discovery throughout the year in their own backyards and daily life. In addition, this experience should infuse them with the confidence to create and express themselves more confidently through art. Only a few spots remain, so sign up today so that camper in your life won’t miss out!
During each week, the Caterpillar Lab will allow campers to get up close and personal with many different species of native caterpillars and learn about their adaptations.
Learn more about many fascinating species of native caterpillars
Discover native caterpillars at the wildlife sanctuary and at home
Create art inspired by these amazing natural creatures
Become excited about discovering their natural world and sharing it with others
Week 1: Natural Connections (July 6 to July 10)
For the first week, campers will learn about how these caterpillars interact with plants, like how the monarch caterpillar is able to consume milkweed and turn the toxins in the milkweed into a defensive weapon.
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Week 2: Taking Flight (July 13 to July 17)
For the second week, campers will learn how caterpillars are adapted against birds. Because, unless they are “told otherwise”, birds view caterpillars as big, juicy snacks. For example, the caterpillars of the spicebush swallowtail butterfly look likes snakes, which is an adaptation that scares birds and saves the caterpillar from being lunch. We have lots of spicebush in the wildlife sanctuary and are optimistic that campers will be able to find these caterpillars on the property.
Do you know a creative kid or a nature detective…then open up a world of exploration, imagination, and investigation this summer by signing them up for the Wild at Art Summer Camp in Canton.
“The heron stands in water where the swamp
Has deepened to the blackness of a pool,
Or balances with one leg on a hump
Or marsh grass heaped above a muskrat hole.”
Theodore Roethke, “The Heron”
Great blue herons are the largest and most widely distributed heron in Massachusetts and Eastern US. Great blue herons are wading birds in the order Pelicaniformes and in the family Ardeidae, which consists of bitterns, herons, and egrets in the United States.
Nesting: Herons nest in rookeries, specifically in the tops of tall dead trees located in swampy habitat, which Barry captured in his watercolors. In Massachusetts, many rookeries are the result beaver dams that have flooded areas, creating swamps or small ponds, killing trees. Nests are made out of sticks that form platforms and are lined with leaves, moss, pine needles, and other leaf material. Check out the video below to learn more.
Feeding: Herons are one of the top predators in many aquatic ecosystems and play an extremely important role in the aquatic food web. Their diet consists primarily of fish, using their spear-like beak to pierce their prey and swallow it whole. In addition, herons will also hunt for frogs, salamanders, snakes, rodents, other small mammals, crustaceans like crabs, small birds, and other small animals.
Population declines in the 19th and 20th century: Their status as a top predator also made them extremely susceptible to widespread pollution and played a large role in their dramatic population declines in the early and mid 20th century. Because herons eat other aquatic predators, which eat plants rich with toxins, including by-products of now banned DDT and PCBS, herons would ingest large quantities of pollutants which had dramatic negative effects on their reproduction. This process is called bio-accumulation.
Are herons aquatic gardeners? Yes…but indirectly.
Herons can change the types of plants and animals present in a sea grass ecosystem. Herons eat lots of fish, especially in the spring and early summer. When herons eat lots of fish, there are less fish present to eat other aquatic invertebrates, which eat the sea grass, these little critters are called amphipods. More herons, less fish, more amphipods, less sea grass. When herons were excluded from the aquatic system, more fish are present and they eat lots of aquatic invertebrates, specifically really important invertebrates call amphipods, and the entire system changes to a shrimp dominated system and the plant community changes. Learn more about this study by Huang et al. (2015).
A few delightful comments on the great blue heron from the late 19th century:
How do great blue herons do in a Massachusetts winter:
“In such an event they (great blue heron) might survive the following winter if it should prove to be a mild one, while the stoutest heart among them would probably succumb to the rigors of a genuine ‘old-fashioned’ New England winter.” Walter Faxon, MCZ, Cambridge, Massachusetts
“The Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) is a bird that rarely favors us with his presence in the winter months. It may be worth while, then, to chronicle the capture of one in the Arnold Arboretum, West Roxbury, Mass., either December 31, 1889, or January 1, 1890. A tub of water stocked with minnows served to keep him alive for five or six days, when he suddenly died either from cold or the enervating effects of imprisonment.” Walter Faxon, MCZ, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Source: The Long-Billed Marsh Wren, Maryland Yellow-Throat, Nashville Warbler and Great Blue Heron in Eastern Massachusetts in Winter Author(s): Walter Faxon, The Auk, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Oct., 1890), pp. 408-410
Hepaticas at Brown Hill, watercolor on Arches hot-press, 9″ x 12.25″
The blossoms varied from white to pale pink to a lovely sky blue. I set up my field kit and made a painting showing the three color variations. You can see a few trout lily leaves in the upper left of my watercolor – these handsome, mottled leaves were poking up all over the forest floor.
In this photo of my painting set-up you can just see a few of the Hepatica blossoms in the upper left corner. They are truly small flowers.
While I worked, yellow-rumped warblers murmured from the trees overhead and a sapsucker sounded off periodically. By about 4:30 pm the blossoms started to nod and close up for the night. I did another drawing of the nodding blossoms, and added color back in the studio.
Nodding Hepaticas, watercolor on Arches hot-press, 10.5″ x 8″
The first in a series of posts by MABA resident artist Barry Van Dusen
Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, Princeton on March 11, 2015
After a long, cold winter (February the coldest and snowiest ever recorded in Eastern Massachusetts!), this mild day in the 60s was my chance to get outdoors and start my Museum of American Bird Art residency, visiting Mass Audubon sanctuaries across the state! I started close to home at Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary in Princeton. The trails at the Sanctuary were still deep in snow – impassable by anyone without snowshoes or skis, so I wandered the cleared paths around the barns, and checked out the new work being done on the foundation of the horse barn.
I knew the sheep would be good models to draw, as I had worked with them before. Most of the sheep in the Wachusett Meadow flock are of Merino and Coopworth lineage, but I found the petit Shetlands, which are a recent addition, especially attractive.
sketchbook study, 3″ x 4″
Shetland Sheep, sketchbook study, 6″ x 7″
Shearing time is still a few weeks away, and the animals are heavy with wool. When the Shetland ram “Hickory” and the ewe “Willow” struck a pose side by side in the strong late-winter sunlight, I recognized the opportunity for a good watercolor!
Hickory and Willow at Wachusett Meadow, watercolor on Arches cold-press, 10.25″ x 14″
In this blog, I will touch on happenings around the Museum, exhibitions, conservation, natural history, the wildlife sanctuary, and much more. One of my main passions and areas of interests in addition to birds, education, and art is with pollinators, especially our diverse and amazing species of native bees (did you know there are more than 360 species of native bees in Massachusetts alone). First, I’d like to talk a little bit about the humble bumble bee.
Common Eastern Bumble bee visiting goldenrod. Photo credit: Sean Kent
As spring slowly turns into summer, the fragrant flowering trees and their gently falling flowers wash winter away and signal an end to our hibernation from 7 feet of snow. As the streets buzz with activity and people eagerly greet the sun’s warm rays, my daughter eagerly points out, the
Bloom apple flowers at the Museum of American Bird Art. Photo Credit: Sean Kent
streets buzz not only with people, but with one of the first and most important native wild pollinators to emerge. The furry, booming bumble bees.
Bumble bees are in the genus, Bombus, which means “booming”, and captures the cacophonous and frenzied pace of a bumble bee racing from flower to flower. It’s called flight of the bumble bee for a reason.
In the spring, you’ll probably notice that the bumble bees are much larger than you would see in the summer because the bumble bees flying around, searching for a nest site, and collecting nectar and pollen at cherry, apple, or holly flowers – to name a few – are queen bees, beginning their epic quest to start their own colony.
Once queens emerge from hibernation (dormancy), they need to stock up on nectar and pollen and find a suitable nesting site to form a colony. However, it can be really cold in the spring and life is very precious for newly emerged queens. Bumble bees can warm themselves up and get moving on cool spring days. Check out this fantastic BBC video narrated by Sir David Attenborough and watch the thermal images of a bumble bee on a cold spring morning:
This is a fantastic book by Dave Goulson about bumblebees: Goulson, D. 2010. Bumblebees: behavior, ecology, and conservation. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Link from the Xerces Society about bumble bee declines and imperiled bumble bees: www.xerces.org/bumblebees/
