Flight to St.Paul Island

I was extremely lucky to get a job to lead a tour to visit St. Paul Island in Alaska, a place to go once in a life time.  So after being boiled in hot and humid Japan for ten days, here I was again at cold and windy seabird colony spectacular.
添乗の仕事でアラスカのセントポール島に行かせてもらった。まずはシアトル経由でアンカレッジへ。



14時間半、人に寄っては21時間以上も飛行機に乗った後だというのに、アラスカまで来た興奮と日の長さに誘われて、初日の夕飯後から、参加者全員で探鳥に出かけた。
The first evening in Anchorage, we already started birding after dinner and found US's national bird, Bald Eagle and its nest!





Everyone was so excited. Some couldn't help but getting up early next morning and walking around before breakfast. They found Merlin chicks. Five of them!
コチョウゲンボウのヒナ。まだあちこちに綿毛が残っていたが、翼の羽はしっかりしていて、時々羽ばたいていた。



To St. Paul Island, we fly by a propeller aircraft.
搭載できる重量に非常に制限があるらしく、スーツケースだけでなく、機内持ち込みする手荷物、体重までも記録された。



I had a great aerial view and it added the excitement for the coming big adventure.



Mt. Redoubt and Mt. Iliamna. I leaned that Mt. Redoubt is a very active volcano erupted as recent as 2009! （標高3,108メートルのリダウト山と3,053メートルのイリアムナ山)
アンカレッジを飛び立ち、１時間ほど飛んだベーリング海に面した町、Dillinghamで給油。アメリカ英語なので、発音はディリンガムではなくてディリングハム！ さらに数時間飛んだ後にようやく見えてきたのが、目的地のセントポール島だった。



Finally, we reached to our destination, St. Paul Island.  If you have no idea about where it is, it's in the middle of the Bering sea. If we could fly directly from Japan, it would have been much quicker! In fact the flight to Seattle flew passed right above the island.
約100キロ平方と伊豆大島より少し大きいくらいの面積の島で、キタオットセイの毛皮を目当てに探検してきたロシア人によりセントポール（聖パウロ）の日、7月12日に発見された。

Northumberland Coast Path

The third day in Northumberland was very windy. The weather forecast said that it was going to be around 40 mph during the lunch hours and the boats to the islands did not run.
But it was really a sunny day! We took a bus down to Craster and walked along the coast up to Seahouses. It was about ten mile walk.



Walking toward Dunstanburgh Castle.  



Dunstanburgh城の北側から海鳥のコロニーがのぞける。ミツユビカモメ、フルマカモメ、ヨーロッパヒメウ、オオハシウミガラスなどがひと通りいたが、なぜかウミガラスがあまり見当たらなかった。



It was great that we could stop anywhere, anytime. We had plenty of time. It wouldn't get dark way after nine.  
The yellow flower is cowslip, so I was told by a hiker.  So this is the plant which Cowslip, the head rabbit of a warren in Watership Down, was named after!  



途中にあるLong Nanny保護区はキョクアジサシとコアジサシのコロニーで有名で、イギリス本土にある最も大きなコロニーだという。ナショナル・トラストでは5人体制で24時間、捕食者や潮による巣が水没を避けるために監視しているという。
I found a good article about how National Trust protects the colony of terns here!




Eiders were at the sea. I was looking at one cute eider duckling when it was snatched by a herring gull! It was very shocking but well, that's the nature.

Since we spent long time sitting here and there, watching birds, it was in the evening when we finally reached to Seahoues.  Fish and Chips was a nice treat.  

Farne Islands

I finally looked back my sketchbook from my Northumberland trip and scanned the images in!



電車とバスを乗り継いで、ファーン島へ渡る船が出るSeahousesへ。港のベンチに座っているとホシムクドリが食べ物をねだってやってくる。



Eiders at the harbour in Seahouses. ホンケワタガモがいっぱい。

そして翌日、風が強く、沖にあるStaple島は周りを回っただけだったが、Inner Farneへは上陸できた。ナショナル・トラストにより管理されており、Staple島は午前中のみ、Inner Farneは午後のみと、一般の人が上陸できる時間が制限されている。



We were welcomed by the arctic terns' attack, of course!  Each nest had a numbered stone nearby for research purpose.  





ニシツノメドリ。個人的には、太平洋側のツノメドリよりよっぽどかわいいと思う。目があまりツノメになっていず、丸く大きく見える。
Farne Islands are the place for puffins.  So I did lots of their sketches. But because of its unique bill shape, it took me a long time to get the hang of how to draw them. And since we could only spend two and a half hours on the island, it was rather difficult.



Shags were nesting there, too.  (ヨーロッパヒメウ)



I was sitting and drawing this shag on the nest and got lots of birds' dropping on me!

Rock Pool Study

On the last day on the Seabird Drawing course, I went to tranquil Tyningham Bay. I was thinking of how to continue sketching and painting in the field back in Japan, where I have nothing like the seabird colonies that allow me to sit in front of almost steady birds and paint.



I wasn't very successful with that mission.  I did some scrabbles of eider families and curlews and cormorants in the distance as well as a landscape painting.  



But I was also tempted by the idea of rock pool study.  I head that John Busy loved Tyningham and its rock pools. 
I found a green crab, which seemed to be a shore crab. There were many periwinkles.    



The last evening, we had a temporary exhibition of the best works from the week.



It was just amazing to see what everyone achieved during the week.



Thank you so much, Darren, Greg, John and Kittie for helpful tutorials, Mark,  Chris and Duck Hotel for organising the course brilliantly, all the amazing participants for inspirations and last but not least John Busby for creating such a wonderful course.

On the Cliff

St. Abbs Head is a beautiful, colourful place.



And I think I was a bit destructed by its too many colours on the painting above.



So back to limited colour palette...



I felt that there were fewer guillemots this year on the cliff.  But it seemed to be because youngs had already fledged and they were out on the sea.  I spotted several chicks, very cute ones!  



There was a kestrel's nest with four healthy youngsters, too.  It was really interesting to watch them.  When a parent brought food, some sort of a mouse or a young tit, chicks fought each other to get it.  Then one who manages to grab it tends to move away and eat it with its back to others, hiding the food with its wings.



Fulmar.

Go Bass Rocking

The most special day during the special week was when we went on the Bass Rock, the island of thousands of gannets!  



I like puffin but my favorite is still gannet even though one pecked me as I climbed up to the chapel through their nests.  I walked too close to one nest.  It was my fault.  The chicks were already big white fluffs but they all looked tired in burning sunshine.  It was a very hot day and I got sunburn, too.  



When you are in a special place and you want to make most of it, it is difficult to try new things because you are afraid of making mistakes and having nothing to bring back.   
But I am happy that I tried this piece and it somewhat worked.  I painted the shadow first and drew gannets on top.  



One discussion made me think a lot during the course was that we are all on our artistic journey and in order to get somewhere we need to keep learning and experimenting and discovering.  We don't always have to make a good final piece when drawing/painting.  Bad sketch or painting as a result of trial or learning process is sometimes more important than a good one that is the same kind as you make before.
And having whole day sketching allows us to do a little bit of mess.  
I don't think I achieved much during the course in that respect, though. But the thoughts are in me and I can try from now on.

Parliament of Puffins

The second day on the Seabird Drawing Course, I went on to Fidra, a RSPB's island on the Firth of Forth and I spent all my time watching puffins.



I found it very important for good sketches to spend enough time at one place. It is only after I take all in, what the birds are doing, how they move, the environment, the weather etc when I can finally start sketching something nice.







With two sand eel, one facing this way and the other opposite.



The right one had a sprat on its mouth.

On the 4th of July, after the drawing course, I visited the Island of May, too, thanks to my friend.
The sea was really choppy for crossing but it was worth while visiting that day because it turned out to be a bright evening.  



The sun was shining toward us so I tried to capture the light and the shadow, rather than the outline of the birds. I wished I had enough time to pull out my paint box.  

 

Seabird Drawing Course 2015

I am sorry for being very quite here but I just came back to Japan with wonderful memories of three and a half months in Britain.
The best of all, if I must pick one, was the Seabird Drawing Course.  It was my third time to join it but it was as special, if not more, as before.



We were welcomed by this sign board made by Darren Woodhead at Duck hotel, Aberlady!  

This amazing week-long course in sketching seabirds in the field, based at East Lothian, was originally founded by John Busby in 1988.   Very sadly, he had passed away a few weeks before this year's course started and it had to be run without him.  But many people who have been tutoring or joining the course from the very early years said that the atmosphere and the sprit of the course haven't changed at all over the years.  And it was as great as the two years I joined in 2012 and 2013.
I was also glad to hear that John Busby's Seabird Drawing Course will continue running next year and after.      



The first day at Dunbar as usual and we were caught in a shower as usual.  But it was the only time we had spots of rain while drawing this year.  



Sketches in charcoal pencil.



First day, we all struggle.  Everyone tries to work in their comfort zone.  But what is great about this course is we have a week to loose up and try new things.  



Kittiwakes are nesting at these ruin of Dunbar castle. What a location to pick ones home!



Darren's talk on what we should think when we draw birds after dinner.