Robins and colouring!

[awanderingbard]

We have a robin who makes her nest over our backyard porchlight every year. She's done the same this year, and she's been there for several weeks now, yelling at us each time we open the door to let Ascii in or out. It's funny, because you'll be somewhere in the house and hear the backdoor open followed by someone saying 'sorry Mrs Robin!'. The little robins have hatched now and Mrs Robin must have decided we're okay, because she's been feeding them right while we sit on the porch and watch. It's so cool to watch! I have a few pictures, but I can't get too close, so they aren't the best.



The first one is her feeding the birds, the second is her sitting on the roof with a worm in her mouth, and the third is the nest with a little bird peeking out. There are four in there. When she comes to feed them, they all raise themselves up and tweedle at her and she drops the food in one of their mouths, then waits a second and one of them will stick it's butt in the air and poop and she takes it and flies over to the fence and drops it on the ground to keep the nest tidy. It's really interesting to watch.

In other news, I've been feeling pretty crap lately, healthwise, and when that happens, I like to learn new things to distract myself, so I've been learning how to colour in lineart. I still can't draw to save my life, but I do quite like colouring. Here's my first attempt, done with Photoshop Elements and my tablet:



The lineart is by Hashm0sa here, and featured in a gallery on DA with free lineart to colour in. It's not perfect (my colouring) and I'm still working on how light works, but I'm happy with my progress. The sketch reminded me of Phryne Fisher of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries's fame (Mum and I have been watching it on Netflix), so I coloured her to look like that.

In a very 1920's fashion, Mum has ordered me to 'convalesce' from my health woes for the past two years, which have been varied and yucky. And it's very hard to just sort of look after yourself and sleep if you're tired and go and sit on the porch and read your book and pretend like you're on holiday when there's stuff that you could be doing that would be helpful to other people, but you can't really do because you're so rundown. But I'm working on it. By watching robins and colouring in pictures.

Comments

[aelfgyfu_mead]

Hurray for robins and coloring! The baby poking up is pretty cute. I find it funny that she makes her nest there every year and then gets upset every time at the dog coming and going.

Keep taking care of yourself.

[awanderingbard.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I can't swear it's the same robin each year. A better way to say it is that a robin makes a nest there every year and it might be the same one. I don't ever remember them sticking around this long before, so perhaps it's a different, more determined robin. One year, it was on our front porch light and I think I scared a little fledgling out of the nest when I left the house, or my exit was exactly timed with its first flight, but it flew right out in the street and only narrowly missed being hit by a car! I had to reassure the driver that I could see the bird on the lawn on the other side if the street. At least these babies will be safer when they leave the nest.