More Purple Martin Studies

Watching martins fly in and out of their colony, listening to their continuous vocals and becoming familiar with their social interactions were all part of the fun of getting to know this species.  It wasn't that I had never seen a martin before, but that I knew little about them and had never had the opportunity to observe them in detail.

I also had a challenge, a request to paint a martin flying into the colony with a dragonfly in its mouth.  I  immediately wondered--how am I going to do that?  Fast flying birds are not easy to photograph nor capture in a sketch, and capturing one with an insect in its mouth seemed unlikely.

Persistence paid off.  I paid the colony a number of visits, captured more than I ever expected to with both my camera and my mind, and actually did capture a photo of a female martin flying in with a huge dragonfly.  It wasn't that I needed to photograph the image I would create, but that I wanted to study the wing shapes and movements, and get a good feel for the martin's overall personality.  These details and a real sense of the characteristics of the bird give me inspiration and add life to what I'm painting.

The Studies Before the Painting--Purple Martins

Introduce me to a new bird that nests high above my head, whose primary behavior is feeding in flight, and ask me to paint this bird, and I've been handed a challenge. Purple Martins.

Fun birds!  Below you see my initial scribbles as I watched the birds fly and perch during the nesting phase in April with the help of a friend's binoculars.  I took lots of photos on that first visit, but capturing an image with useful information was a real challenge with these birds.  Their nesting gourds are high over your head, anywhere from 10-20 feet and their flight patterns are high speed bursts--all part of getting to know the bird.  

Purple martins are very busy birds, social and highly vocal, with lots of interaction among pairs as they nest in close proximity.  In fact, all the activity looks like chaos initially, like they can't make up their minds where home is or who is their mate.   And that is part of what is going on as they return to their breeding areas, the selection of mates and nesting sites within the colony.  Watching all that confusion (largely mine) just made me want to get a book about purple martins and research them on the web to help me understand everything I was seeing.  This is the real joy of painting nature, getting to know the species, being out with the birds, watching, listening, learning about their habits and behavior.

Purple martins are aerial insectivores, the largest member of the swallow family in North America, and spend their non-breeding season in Brazil.  East of the Rocky Mountains, martins are totally dependent on human-supplied nesting cavities, the familiar multi-compartment houses and rows of gourd-shaped nest boxes positioned high on a pole.  It was my good fortune to meet a purple martin landlord in my area and visit his colony of martins on a number of occasions during the nesting season to photograph, sketch and enjoy them while observing.  I even resorted to climbing onto the roof of my vehicle to get a better look at their activities!

And somehow, all of this will become a painting, several paintings--my opportunity to re-enjoy all that I love about these birds with watercolor and paper.