夏の一日

The place to go during summer, when most birds are quiet, is Terugasaki in Oiso.
White-bellied green pigeons fly all the way from mountain to visit the rock pool at Terugasaki to drink sea water.  It's beautiful when the sun shines on them!  



朝の１時間半だけだったけれど、照ヶ崎のアオバトを見てきた。夏に一度は見に行きたい光景。あまり早起きをしなかった割には、今日一番の群れ（こまたんの方の調査による）にも出会えて、ラッキーだった。



岩が波を被っても、踏みとどまって平然と海水を飲んでいるのは成鳥のオスが多い気がする。だからスケッチできるのも成鳥のオスが多くなる。

避暑

八ヶ岳山麓に避暑に行ってきた。
Yatsugatake area had always been our family's summer holiday destination. So it was lovely to spend holidays there this summer.



August is not the best season to watch birds even in mountain.  All the birds had stopped singing and some like cuckoo must have already left the area.   But we could still enjoy stonechat families.



ノビタキの幼鳥がたくさんいた。



ノスリも光彩が黄色く茶色っぽい幼鳥。霧の中、なぜか翼を半開きにして止まっていた。



We hiked around Utsukushimori area and enjoyed lots of flowers and butterflies... and a soft serve ice cream!
アザミは小さな花が集まっているので、チョウが時間をかけてそれぞれの蜜を吸う。スケッチ時間が長くなる！


ゴイシジミ（Taraka Hamada）
ササにつくアブラムシの分泌液を吸うチョウ。羽の表面は真っ黒。



ホオジロはまだ元気にさえずっていた。

素敵な自然があり、メルヘンチックなお店が並ぶ清里エリア。ふらりと遊びにきた家族が気軽に自然に触れ合えるようなハイキングコース、その展望エリアには一休みにちょうど良いカフェやお土産屋も整備されていて、ヨーロッパを思わせる。
でも、山並みと晩夏の花や蝶を愛でながら一息ついていると、聞こえてくるのは、展望台のお店がラウドスピーカで流す、ソフトクリームの宣伝文句。日本の観光地ってどうして、こうもダサイんだろう。

Puffin三兄弟

新しいきびだんごが誕生した。角団子とパフ団子。



Let me introduce Puffin twin recently joined our juggling ball gang!  Atlantic (left) and Horned (right).  



太平洋勢と大西洋勢の邂逅。



The Pacific puffins love kayak coming from Aleutian Islands and the Atlantic guys prefer currach from Ireland and Scotland.

　

Reduction Lino Gannets

I tackled another reduction lino print. This time, of gannets on Bass Rock.



Seabird Drawing CourseでスケッチしたBass Rockのシロカツオドリをリノリウム版画のリダクション法で作ってみた。白い紙に５色のせている。





What I love about reduction linocut is that I can discard the block without hesitation. Once finished, it has no use.  It's good for our tiny apartment.



There is a charm about the prints lying next to each other, just like the Campbell's Soup Cans by Andy Warhol.

夏のアトリエ2015

あまりの暑さに夏眠中。暑さに強い母の遺伝子をもらわなかったわたしは30度を越えると動かなくなるらしい。
そんなこんなですっかりブログ記事にするのが遅くなってしまったが、今年も板橋区立美術館の夏のアトリエに参加してきた。講師はベルギーのイラストレーター、クラース・フェルプランケさんだった。



I joined a summer workshop for children's book illustrators at the Itabashi Art Museum again. It started from the 28th July, two days after I came back from Alaska, and I must admit that I was tired even before it started.
This year we had Klaas Verplancke, an illustrator from Belgium.  And it was really a fulfilling week!



We had many many assignments during the week and this was the first one, metamorphoses, to combine two or three things which are completely different from each other.
It was really a difficult week for me because I normally don't draw or make story from memory and imagination.  I realised that I always work inductive from what I see out there to find a concept but not deductive from a certain idea in my brain to play out from it.  It was a good exercise for me!



一週間に５つも課題が出た。俳句に３種類の異なる技法を使ってイラストを付け、A3のポスターにまとめるというものや、パラドックスを示すお話を作るなど。集中することで、案外できてしまうもの。
It was good to have lots of limitations on making image, colour pallet, technique and time.

Klaas also told us a quote from Picasso, which was very interesting especially after the fuss about the Olympic logo. 
 "To copy others is necessary, but to copy oneself is pathetic."
In some way, we all need to get inspirations from something and develop from there.  It's not good at all, of course, to completely copy someone.  But this reminded me that it's as bad to keep multiplying what I produce and make no progress.  

Back in Anchorage

We flew back to Anchorage a day earlier and did more birdwatching on the mainland Alaska. It was scheduled that way in case the flight from the island didn't fly due to bad weather.  But it gave us opportunity to see more bird species, too.



飛行機の待ち時間に、海岸で参加者が拾った海藻を描かせてもらった。コノハノリの仲間だそうだ。



American Robin at Hill Side Park. （コマツグミ）



We had a nice birding time at Potter Marsh and observed another bald eagle's nest.



On the last evening, we again found ourselves at Westchester Lagoon. 
Red-necked grebes were breeding in the lake. 
ほんの少し水面に顔を出しただけの浮き巣。親鳥が座ると沈むようにも見える。水没しないように片親が草を運び巣を補強し続けていた。



Belted kingfisher （アメリカヤマセミ）
One of us spotted this belted kingfisher perching at the far side of the lake.  It was too far away but I sketched it as a memento.  



I believe this was a lesser yellowlegs. But I didn't care much about what the species was because its silhouette against the dazzling water surface was just beautiful.  It was a perfect ending for a great birding tour.  

21 o'clock, time to go out again!

It was still bright well over for two hours after the guided tour finished around half eight to nine. Almost everyone was out looking for more birds.



But not me on this day.  I stayed in my cosy warm room and painted this from the window.  It was 23:00.



The other day though I went out, too, in the late evening.  
There was a red-necked phalarope circling round and round in a little bond near the accommodation.  



宿に帰っても忙しい。アカエリカイツブリ、ツメナガホオジロ、ハイガシラハギマシコ、ユキホオジロ、ミズカキチドリなどが、真夜中近くまで飛び回っているから、どうも部屋に入る気分になれないのだ。



ツメナガホジロ



Nootka Lupine（ハウチワマメ属）



Lapland longspur or Lapland bunting on wild celery. The flowers were in full bloom, even the monkshood.
“What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
I am glad that I didn't touch it! The guide told us that it could poison you merely by touching it and lead you to death! 
写真家向けに設定されたこのツアーの時期は、島の花がどれも満開だった。シシウド系やタカネシオガマ、ホッキョクヒナゲシなど。
島なので、見られる種類は限られているが、なかなか素敵な鳥が多い！



アカアシミツユビカモメ（Red-legged Kittiwake）
The guide told us that it's been bad years for kittiwakes and the breeding number has been decreasing.  As a result there was no red-legged pair breeding on the cliff this year.  But there were several of them flying and resting as well as bathing in a lake.    



Semipalmated Plover and mare's tails（ミズカキチドリとスギナモ）
ハジロコチドリそっくり。



Northern Fur Seal（キタオットセイ）
島内にキタオットセイの繁殖地も数カ所ある。これは海から少し浜に上がったところにしかテリトリーを持てなかった、弱いオスらしい。
オスは繁殖するとなると飲まず食わずでメスをガードしなくてはならないので、１シーズン終わると疲れきってしまうという。そのため、数年に一度しか繁殖せず、繁殖をしないと決めた年は、若いオスとともにビーチにたむろしている。

最終日に町の博物館でキタオットセイの毛皮を触らせてもらい、その柔らかさ、肌触りの良さに感動した。これは、わざわざ僻地に出かけても、手に入れたかったわけだとちょっと納得。

コウミスズメは朝寝坊

My favorite place in the St. Paul Island was the least auklet's colony. They nest in crevices of big rocks along the shore.  Around three o'clock, they come out to stand on the rocks. I could have watched them for hours and hours.



コウミスズメは朝寝坊だ。11時過ぎくらいに起きてきて岩の上に出てくる。15時頃が一番たくさん見られるらしい。夕方になると海に採餌に出かけ、夜中遅くまで帰ってこないという。



訪れた日は天候のせいか、見られる最大数にはほど遠い数だったようだが、それでも、次々にぴょこぴょこと岩の上に出てきては、あっちを向いて、こっちを向いて、しばらくして飛んで行く姿はとてもかわいかった。



The most abundant species of seabird on the island must have been the thick-billed murre. Some common murres were found among them. The thick-billed one has a white line on its beak and common dose not have it. But more obviously, body colour is different. Thick-billed is a dark chocolate and the common is the milk chocolate, the guide told us.



Murres were still incubating their eggs. It is quite late compared to the seabird colony in Scotland, where common murres or guillemots chicks were already hatched or even left the cliff two weeks before.



Beautiful greenish blue egg taken presumably a fox.  

Seabird Paradise

St. Paul Island is a dream-like place for Japanese birdwatchers because seabirds photos' captions in famous Japanese bird guidebooks all say that pictures were taken from the island. And indeed, we could see the close up, beautiful breeding plumage puffins and auklets just like the guidebook photos.



一番人気はやっぱりツノメドリ。まつ毛エクステのおかげで目がV字に見える。うしろはウミオウム。



Although the Horned puffin looks very similar to its Atlantic cousin, I realised that horned is much bigger, in fact six to eight cm difference in total length and whopping 230 gram difference in weight.



セントポール島には、メインの海鳥観察ポイントが２カ所あり、毎夕のようにどちらかを訪れて夕方8時過ぎまで観察した。夕方の時間が一番、海鳥が崖に集まっている時間のようだ。





Tufted Puffin is even bigger!



Tufted puffin and the common murre or guillemot.  Why on earth even the bird names are different in American English from British English!  



コロニーでは一番数が少なく、よく探す必要があったエトロフウミスズメ。