Two Crows

Two Crows / Oil on black canvas / 8x10 unframed / $88 includes shipping

sold!

I HAVE A LOVE-HATE relationship with the black birds of my neighborhood. They are crows, grackles, starlings and heaven knows what else. They are big and brassy and smart and bold, and they can - and do - empty the feeder in minutes.

The feeder is really too small for them, and if they manage to land directly on it, it tips, and tips them backwards - and yet they hang on. Sometimes, two will land on the feeder at the same time, and even out the weight. I always wonder if they plan this. 

They bash and crash their wings with strength and bravado, trying to get close enough to clamp on with their claws. One bashed up against the screen this morning and hung there for a long moment, looking in, head tipped, bright eye seeming to study me. 

I will leave the feeder empty for a few days, hoping the cloud of black birds will have gone to the other end of town and stayed there, and then I will creep out and fill it. The little birds will circle, eager, hungry, and flit on the feeder and get at least some to eat - and then the first of the black birds will show up. And somehow, by some communication, some sign, some knowledge, in moments, the whole cloud will arrive. And the food will be gone. 

It is fascinating, to be sure. I love their intelligence, and the way they strut and stroll, as if they own the yard - and who is to say they don't? And who am I, anyways, to imply that the little brown birds are more important, more deserving, hungrier? 

The world plays out on my feeder. 

***
For Today

"I would rather die of passion than of boredom."

- Vincent Van Gogh

Crowing - and Hatch, NM

Crowing /  Oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold!

CROWS ARE SMART. When we moved in, here in Wachapreague, there was some sort of antenna tower sitting on a square of concrete in the back yard. 

One morning while I was out in the studio painting, I heard a persistent sort of cracking noise, and looked up to see a crow sitting on top of the tower, tossing pecans down through the center, so they would hit the concrete and crack. Then the crow could open them relatively easily. 

An article in a science journal in 2014 found that your average crow is about as smart as a 7-year-old child. The scientists gave six wild crows a series of tasks involving water displacement. The crows had to figure out how to get bits of floating food, by dropping heavy objects into a tube filled with water. The heavy things would displace enough water to bring the floating food up high enough that the crows could reach it. 

Seven-year-old child? I am not sure that this 63-year-old so-called adult would have figured out that I could get the food by dropping something heavy into the water. Sheesh. But sometimes I think the car is smarter than I am. 

***

Hatch, NM / Oil on black canvas / 16x20 / $435 including shipping

sold

PLEASE REMEMBER my landscape-painting workshop, Saturday at 1 p.m., on Facebook. It's free, it will be easy and I think it will be fun! Set up with your computer, something to paint on and something to paint with. We will be painting a landscape a little like the one above.

***

Thought for the Day

"She decided to free herself, dance into the wind, create a new language. 

And birds fluttered around her, writing 'yes' in the sky." 

- Monique Duval