Mysterious Encounter Upon the Lawn

Last night when I went out to bring in a garbage bin, I heard a strange rustling sound behind me on the lawn.

I turned and saw a lump sitting on the grass and assumed it was one of the stray cats in the area that likes to poop in our boxwoods.

Feeling like I could actually do something to prevent a clandestine scat session I approached the lump and watched as part of it broke off and scuttled into the hedge.

What remained behind seemed to be an improbably large mound of poo.

As I got closer I leaned down and saw that it was actually a hedgehog.

I had never seen one out and about before and I was excited by the discovery.

I ran into the house to tell Nick and his mum but they didn't seem as thrilled as me.

I went back out onto the lawn and saw that the lump was gone. I heard a scratching noise behind me and saw it scurrying toward one of the other natural areas.

I followed it and it proceeded to employ its defense mechanism which was to freeze and pretend to be part of the landscape.

I couldn't resist the urge to poke gently at its spikes. It responded by blinking a couple of times and stoically maintaining its posture.

I saw a captive hedgehog in a pet store once and the same need to poke at it had overtaken me then.The end result was me getting my finger nipped. It didn't break the skin but it did give me a mild case of hurt feelings.

I decided to leave the creature alone and let it get about its business. I bid it goodnight and returned to the house.  

An Odd Source of Inspiration

I recently went to a cafe with Nick and I saw this painting hanging up on the wall:

The original painting is called "Mystery of the Missing Migrants" and is by artist Charley Harper.

I recognized it because I used to have it in the form of a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

Whoever painted the one in the cafe had given it a different title, signed their name to it and was attempting to sell it with no mention of Harper whatsoever.

This bothered me immensely so I sent an email to the cafe telling them about the origin of the piece and asking them to contact the artist or the studio that provided the replica.

The reproduction did some good however in that it got me interested in Harper's art again.

I spent a lot of time looking at cached images of his work on Google.

I decided to try and apply his methods to paintings of New Zealand's bird life but, unlike the cafe artist, I have created work that is my own and I give credit to Harper for inspiring it.

My first painting was of a Goldfinch and I was pretty happy with the results:

Below are some other examples of Harper's work:

As you can see, Charley's birds are minimalist and reduced down to basic geometric shapes. 

Tails are triangles, bodies are semi circles and legs are angles. Despite this simplification, the richness of the colors and patterns make the birds easy to recognize.

As a lifelong hater of math, I was surprised at how much sense geometry started to make when it took this form. 

Getting the circle, semi circle, angle and triangle ratios correct is easy because the bird looks wrong if they aren't done properly. 

I can almost feel long unused places in my brain waking up when I work on the rough drawings in my sketchbook.

So far I have done the Goldfinch, a Kokako and a Fantail. I'm thinking of doing a larger painting of Kea for the baby's room.

Song of the Week: Peking Duk - Feels Like

Visiting With Kea In Arthur's Pass

There is something reassuring and exciting for me when I see the snow capped Southern Alps.

I used to gaze on them as I drove to work every morning and feel some stirring that I couldn't quite express.

Last Friday, Nick's mum offered to take the baby so I could have a day out and I decided to drive to Arthur's Pass and look for Kea.

The drive takes about two hours and passes through the Canterbury plain before a slow climb up into the hills.

It is spring here and there are trees bursting with cherry blossoms.

I love long, scenic drives and this one was perfect.

I checked for Kea at the three locations where I knew they would visit but had no luck except for one bird that flew off before I could get close.

In between my searches, I climbed most of the way up the Temple Basin Track and managed to twist my ankle several times on the way back down.

Temple Basin

At about 4 p.m. I pulled up to Death's Corner and saw a couple with a stalled van.

They were from the Czech republic and the man was trying to fill the radiator with water but he didn't have enough. I gave him a large water bottle I had purchased in the village.

Two Kea had flown in silently while I was taking in the view and were walking around beneath the stalled van.

The birds were both juvenile. One male and one female. Neither of them had been banded.

The two had discovered some peanuts thrown on the ground and took turns hopping cautiously toward them while keeping an eye on me as I sat nearby.

The male set his crown feathers on edge to show dominance toward the female and if she didn't get out of his way fast enough he would chase her off.

The female Kea.

While she maintained her distance, the male would take a peanut in his claw and eat it a few inches away from me.

The male Kea.

I hadn't realized how accustomed I am to the more tame Kea at Willowbank. They take liberties with my boots and bags and whatever I happen to be wearing because they are used to people in their enclosure and to me in particular.

These two were cautious and  I imagine it comes from being wild and young and still learning about humans.

One of the Czech tourists took this pic for me.

Both birds appeared to be in good health.

I left after about 30 minutes of observation and headed home.

One day I would like to rent a small cabin in Arthur's Pass, get a research grant and stay a while to study the Kea.