Month: November 2019

So we have worked our way through the 23 most endangered species of native birds in New Zealand, and, as I discussed initially, I will then turn them into a 24-bird design, to echo the concept of an advent calendar – but here, we are documenting the advent of their extinction. 

​Choosing a 24th bird ended up being easy – I was concerned for a while that the winner might be a bird that I had already drawn, and I had no desire to start on the next section of the DOC list, as that would pretty much force me to keep going until I had finished them all. And birds are great, but I need a break.

Luckily for me, the winner of the 2019 Bird of the Year competition is the Hoiho (Yellow-eyed penguin). I haven’t drawn a penguin yet, so that’s an added bonus. 

One really important thing to mention is that, even though the Hoiho are not actually in any of the three lists on the DOC endangered species page, that’s actually an indicator of how very endangered the listed species are – because with a conservation status of “in serious trouble”, Yellow-eyed penguins (hoiho) are disappearing before our eyes. They are one of the rarest penguins in the world with just 1,700 pairs remaining. 

If nothing is done to reverse current declines, scientists predict they could be extinct on mainland New Zealand within 10 – 20 years.
Source:
Bird of the Year

A tall, portly penguin with a pale yellow band of feathers that runs from each yellow eye around the nape, a long straight red-brown and pale cream bill, and pink and black feet. The rest of the head, neck and dorsal surface is slate blue; the breast and belly white down to the feet.
Source:
NZ Birds online

Very fast sketches of the underlying structure.

This chonky boi Hoiho is channeling Lizzo – all attitude and rocking that thicc body. Love it.

The Hoiho has a lot of its own colours – more than expected when you just look at it. The beak and the eyes are actually quite complex. I have, of course, simplified the lines and the colours to fit my style.

And that’s the lot! 24 birds, in slightly more than 24 business days. What a ride! What was your favourite?

We love to fill our home with art, craft, and decorations made by local makers. We invite you to join us for a walk around our place, having a look at the pieces that aren’t currently packed away.

​After we finished the bathrooms, we moved on to remodel the kitchen. One thing that we added was a set of shelves so that we can get some things off the benchtop, and also add some more character to the room.

​We have gradually colonised the shelves, as I make things and as we buy more art and craft creations.

As well as my laser cut designs, we have doughnuts by Retro Tonic, a crocheted cactus by Goblin Market, and bowls by Aimee McLeod – Potter.

We really enjoy visiting markets when we don’t have stalls, too – nothing like being able to actually relax, rather than sprint around in the hope that you don’t lose any sales while you have a quick shop, yourself!

​We also have other little incidental artworks, like this woven bowl by Niche Textile Studio, or this adorable little bird by Amy Cherie Art, purchased as a karma seed from the Petone Indoor Markets.

​We love to get custom-printed Copper Catkin fabrics made into practical things – so we have teatowels from Roostery, below. You can also spot a plastic-bag holder by O Sew Crafty, repurposed to hold our soft plastic recycling now.

​Used as a placemat, they also make my little work table into a fancy side-table.

​These are the three designs that we have ordered. You can click on the image to shop on Roostery for that design, or click the button to shop for all our teatowel designs.

​We also have bowl and tin covers from Snaxpax, and we ordered custom food pouches as gifts for the whole family last year.

Over the last few weeks, I have drawn a whopping 23 birds, drawing one (almost) every weekday.
Here is a summary of all of those birds – click on the links below to visit the relevant blog posts.

1. Antipodean wandering albatross/toroa
2. Australasian bittern/matuku-hūrepo
3. Chatham Island black robin
4. Black stilt/kakī
5. Black-billed gull/tarāpuka
6. Chatham Island oystercatcher/tōrea tai
7. Chatham Island shag
8. Chatham Island tāiko
9. Gibson’s wandering albatross/toroa
10. Grey duck/pārera
11. Haast tokoeka
12. Kākāpō
13. Kermadec white-faced storm petrel
14. New Zealand fairy tern/tara iti
15. Orange-fronted parakeet/kākāriki karaka
16. Pacific white tern 
17. Pitt Island shag
18. Rock wren/pīwauwau
19. Salvin’s albatross/toroa
20. Shore plover/tuturuatu
21. South Georgian diving petrel
22. Southern New Zealand dotterel/tūturiwhatu
23. White heron/kōtuku

Only one design left – the winner of the Forest & Bird Bird of the Year 2019, ​the Hoiho, or Yellow-eyed penguin. Keep your eyes peeled for that article, and the designs that I make from these drawings!

EDITED TO ADD:
Find the Hoiho post here!

The kōtuku is common in Australia, the South Pacific and Asia.

In New Zealand it only breeds near Whataroa, South Westland, between September and January. This colony is in the Waitangiroto Nature Reserve and guided jet boat tours take visitors to view the birds from an observation hide.
Source:
DOC

The white heron or kotuku is well-loved by the New Zealand people, but it is rarely seen except by those who specifically seek it out. Its sole New Zealand breeding site near Okarito Lagoon in Westland is well-known and well-protected, but elsewhere it is ‘He kotuku rerenga tahi’ or the bird of single flight, implying something seen perhaps once in a lifetime. When seen in close proximity it is a magnificent bird, with its large size and clean white plumage.
Source:
NZ birds online

A large white heron with a long yellow bill, long dark legs and a very long neck. When breeding, the bill becomes grey-black and long filamentous plumes develop, mainly on the back.
In flight, the white heron tucks its head back into its shoulders so that the length of its neck is hidden, giving it a hunched appearance.
When walking, the white heron has an elegant upright stance showing the extreme length of its neck.
When resting it is more hunched with its head tucked in, making the bird appear more bulky.
​Source:
NZ birds online

Important identification characters when separating white herons from other white egret species in New Zealand include overall size, relative neck length, bill colour and shape, and how far the gape (i.e. the corner of the mouth) extends back in relation to the eye. The white heron is the largest, longest-necked of the egrets, and the gape extends well behind the eye.
Source:
NZ birds online

​The most difficult part of this bird for me is the way that the beak and the eye interact and are connected, so that will be my focus in the research images. As always, I am also interested in how the legs and feet work, and how they use their wings.

From a quick structural sketch to a first draft – I have started placing the legs (which are often hidden underwater in the reference photos), and blocked in where I think the wing feathers are. To avoid making white wings look too dark, I think I will just do these as outlines rather than drawing in all the individual feathers.

El Huzbando has been in Melbourne for work for the last 4 days, and his flight lands around midnight. It’s far too late at night for me to drive, so I came out early with my laptop to finish working on these designs. It’s weird being almost the only person here.

Now, it’s time to take these draft sketches to finished detail, using some other reference pictures that show the details more clearly.

I noticed that there are two types of plumage, as with a lot of birds, but that they also change the beak colours, so I decided to show one bird in full breeding plumage and colouring, and one in transition, so it was important to really look at the beak.

And done!

​The New Zealand dotterel is a familiar bird of sandy east coast beaches in the northern North Island, but is sparsely distributed around much of the rest of the country. There are two widely separated subspecies: the northern New Zealand dotterel is more numerous, and breeds around the North Island; the southern New Zealand dotterel was formerly widespread in the South Island, and now breeds only on Stewart Island. Southern New Zealand dotterels are larger, heavier, and darker than northern New Zealand dotterels.
Source:
NZ birds online

There are major differences in breeding habitat between the two subspecies. Northern birds mainly breed on sandy beaches and sandspits, some on shell banks in harbours, a few on gravel beaches. On beaches, they are usually clustered around stream-mouths. In urban areas (particularly Auckland) they often breed a short distance inland on short grass (golf courses, motorway verges, beside airport runways) or on bare ground (building sites, quarries). Southern birds breed on exposed subalpine herbfields and rocky areas above the tree-line on Stewart Island, but are coastal during the non-breeding season, feeding on inter-tidal mudflats and beaches.
Source:
NZ birds online

Plovers (/ˈplʌvər/ or /ˈploʊvər/) are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae.

There are about 66 species in the subfamily, most of them called “plover” or “dotterel”. 

Plovers are found throughout the world, with the exception of the Sahara and the polar regions, and are characterised by relatively short bills. They hunt by sight, rather than by feel as longer-billed waders like snipes do. They feed mainly on insects, worms or other invertebrates, depending on the habitat, which are obtained by a run-and-pause technique, rather than the steady probing of some other wader groups.

Plovers engage in false brooding, a type of distraction display. Examples include: pretending to change position or to sit on an imaginary nest site.

A group of plovers may be referred to as a stand, wing, or congregation. A group of dotterels may be referred to as a trip.
Source:
Wikipedia

The New Zealand plover (Charadrius obscurus) is a species of shorebird found only in certain areas of New Zealand. Its Māori names include tūturiwhatu, pukunui, and kūkuruatu.
[…]
Other common names for the New Zealand plover include the red-breasted dotterel and the New Zealand dotterel.
Source:
Wikipedia

Structurally, they seem very similar, certainly at the level of detail that I will be showing in my drawings. 
They do have different colouring, though.

​A bulky plover with a heavy black bill, relatively long grey legs and large round dark eyes. 
​The upperparts are brown, darker in the southern subspecies, and the underparts are off-white in autumn-early winter, becoming orange-red (also darker in southern birds) from about May onwards. The depth and extent of red colour varies individually and seasonally, but males are generally darker than females. The bill is heavy and black, and the legs mid-grey. First-winter birds have pure white underparts, with legs yellowish to pale grey.
Source:
NZ Birds online

As usual, I capture my palette and use green to identify the uncoloured areas.

And it’s all done!

While both DOC and NZ birds online refer to the South Georgian diving petrel, Wikipedia differentiates between the South Georgian species and a new species, the Whenua Hou diving petrel.

​A somewhat dense academic document explains the difference:

Differences in breeding habitat and results from a preliminary molecular analysis indicated that the New Zealand population of the South Georgian Diving Petrel (Pelecanoides georgicus) was a distinct, yet undescribed, species.
[…]
Results show that individuals from New Zealand differ significantly from P. georgicus from all other populations as following: 1) longer wings, 2) longer outer tail feathers, 3) deeper bills, 4) longer heads, 5) longer tarsi, 6) limited collar extent, 7) greater extent of contrasting scapulars, 8) larger contrasting markings on the secondaries, 9) paler ear coverts, 10) paler collars, and 11) paler flanks. 
Source:
PLoS One

By referring to that article, I can clearly see that these two photos show the correct bird, simply by looking at the white markings on the wings. Most of the other differences require other birds for comparison. The markings are going to be pretty important in the colouring phase of this drawing.

Codfish Island or Whenua Hou is a small island (14 km2 or 5.4 sq mi) located to the west of Stewart Island/Rakiura in southern New Zealand. It reaches a height of 250 m (820 ft) close to the south coast.

The English name “Codfish Island” refers to the endemic blue cod or rawaru / pakirikiri, which is fished commercially in surrounding waters by trapping in baited pots. The Māori-language name “Whenua Hou” means “new land”. Codfish Island is home to Sirocco, an internationally famous kakapo, a rare species of parrot.

​The sole remaining breeding ground in New Zealand is on Codfish Island, near Stewart Island. The birds formerly nested on Enderby and Dundas Islands at the Auckland Islands. Subfossil bones indicate they previously nested on Stewart Island and possibly on Chatham and Macquarie Islands. […]
On Codfish Island the birds nest in sand dunes behind Sealers Bay. Some nests are at the base of dunes at the back of the beach whereas others are amongst native or introduced coastal dune vegetation on the dune slopes.
​All nests are within 100 m of the sea. Nest sites are in very unstable sand and it is nearly impossible to access the nests without destroying these sites.

My first observations are that this bird looks a great deal like a couple of the other petrels that I have drawn recently, particularly the tāiko (the bird, not the drum), although it’s a much larger bird than this one. I can also see a much shorter tail, and different-coloured feet.

The weather here is really odd – it’s very hard to concentrate and settle down to focus correctly on drawing. 
​I’m going to give it my best shot. 

In these pictures, I am referring to the clearest pictures I can find of beak contours and head/neck colouring.

My initial quick outlines need considerable rework – I want to be sure that I am representing a recognisable, if stylised, Whenua Hou diving petrel.

Because there are so few pictures of the actual birds just being birds, I have used reference photos of other South Georgian petrels for my outline sketches, and then I add in the colouration that identifies the correct type of bird. That’s why you can see different stippling patterns on the belly in the draft, which then disappear in the final.

I use bright green to help me identify the white areas that are left to colour, as these become transparent when I create a repeat – so if the background colour is purple, for example, all of these areas will also be purple. 

And here they are, fully coloured! As with all my designs, once they are completed, the colours may change to ensure a more consistent overall effect, which is why I make sure that I capture all of the variants in each picture.

The former range of shore plover is poorly known. They were first sighted in Dusky and Queen Charlotte Sounds on Cook’s second voyage, and at mudflats and sandspits around the North Island in the early 1800s. 

By the 1870s. cats and Norways rats caused the shore plover to vanish from mainland coasts.

For more than 100 years, Rangatira in the Chatham Islands had the only known population of around 120 birds. The current (2017) wild population is around 240 birds, more than half of which are in the Chatham Islands.

Today, Auckland’s Motutapu Island is the easiest place to see shore plover.

They are also found on Rangatira and Mangere Islands in the Chatham Islands, and Waikawa Island in Hawke’s Bay – all of which have restricted access.
Source:
DOC

They all seem to look faintly offended, like those awkward photographic portraits, back when people had to try to stay very still.

​A small stocky plover that is brown above and white below with a distinctive black (male) or dark-brown (female) face mask extending down the neck and throat, a bold white stripe above the eyes, a grey-brown crown mottled with darker brown, and white underparts. The relatively long pointed orange bill has a dark tip, the eye-rings are orange-red and the legs are orange.
Source:
NZ birds online

So I sketched a few ideas from my research, and began to work.

This was another design that required its own colour scheme, so I made another range of colour references.​

And we’re all ready to roll!

​I have already drawn two other birds referred to as “toroa” in this series. So, how do we differentiate between them?

OK, so, both.
A mollymawk is a type of albatross.

Salvin’s mollymawk is a typical medium-sized albatross. It is black across the upperwings, with a white lower back and rump and black tip to the tail. The underparts are white with narrow black borders under the wing and a small black notch in the “armpit” at the base of the leading edge of the wing. The head, throat and nape are pale grey, creating a hooded effect. The bill is grey-green, with a paler top and bottom and a black spot at the tip of the lower bill. Juveniles fledge with olive-brown bills with a dark tip, but apparently immediately depart New Zealand waters, and do not return until they have adult colouration.
Source:
​NZ birds online

Ok, that’s convenient – they look pretty different from the other two toroa. But there are other species that are very similar – probably a good idea to make sure that I show those differences clearly!

Similar species: White-capped and Chatham Island mollymawks are close relatives, but all are separated by the degree of grey on the head and the bill colour. White-capped mollymawk has a white head and neck, with a small black patch in front of the eyes and a grey wash on the cheeks. Its bill has grey-blue sides with yellowish top, bottom and tip. Chatham Island mollymawk is the darkest-faced of the three and has a bright yellow bill with a dark spot near the tip of the lower mandible. Juveniles of Buller’s and Salvin’s mollymawks are very similar, but both species fly across the Pacific Ocean to seas off Chile and Peru as soon as they fledge. Juvenile Buller’s mollymawks are smaller and slimmer, with less robust bills.
Source:
NZ birds online

Looks like the white-capped mollymawk is the bottom of the two birds in that photo, then!

​Albatrosses belong to the Procellariiformes, or petrels, a distinctive group of marine birds readily identified by their nostrils being sheathed in prominent horny tubes arising near the base of the bill. Other features of petrels are the hooked beak tip, long legs, webbed feet for swimming, and a thick coat of feathers with insulation usually augmented by a layer of fat below the skin. Like other seabirds they swallow salt water when feeding, so they have a salt gland above each eye. This removes excess salt from their bloodstream. The salty solution then drains from the tubes along their bill.
Source:
​Te Ara

Well, that’s fascinating! I wondered what those weird nostrils were on the beaks of some of the birds that I have already drawn! And yes, they were petrels!

Right, but the albatrosses don’t seem to have those lumpy beaks…

[Petrels] have nasal passages that attach to the upper bill called naricorns, although the nostrils on the albatross are on the sides of the bill. 
Source:
​TERRAIN

Ok, great, that makes sense. Time to start drawing!

​A medium-sized albatross with pale grey head, throat and nape, black across the upperwings, white lower back and rump, black-tipped white tail, and a grey-green bill with paler top and bottom and a black spot at the tip of the lower bill. Adults have white underparts, narrow black borders under the wing, and a small black notch in the “armpit” at the base of the leading edge of the wing.
Source:
NZ birds online

How amazingly huge these birds are! Their wingspan is around a metre, and they weigh between ​3.4 – 4.4 kg – about the same as a pet cat.

I have drawn quite a few seabirds now, and it’s definitely getting easier. 

And now it’s time to colour it all in! The feet were a bit of a challenge, though, as they seem to be a different colour in each picture, and they’re not described in any of the text I can find. Oh well, we’re going with the colour of the baby feet.

All finished!

Rock wren are our only true alpine bird. It is unknown how they survive the harsh climate above the tree line all year round, but it is likely they continue to forage on rocky bluffs where snow has not collected and amongst large boulder fields. Some have suggested they may have a period of semi-hibernation.
Source:
DOC

This bird has so many names:
New Zealand rock wren, pīwauwau, piwauwau, mātuitui, matuitui, South Island wren, tuke
​Source:
NZ birds online

​The New Zealand rock wren (Xenicus gilviventris) is a small New Zealand wren (family Acanthisittidae) endemic to the South Island of New Zealand. Its Māori names include pīwauwau (“little complaining bird”), mātuitui, and tuke (“twitch”, after its bobbing motion). Outside New Zealand it is sometimes known as the rockwren or South Island wren to distinguish it from the unrelated rock wren of North America.
Source:
Wikipedia

The rock wren is a very small, almost tailless bird that prefers to hop and run on its long legs, and uses its rounded wings to fly only short distances. Males are 16 g, females 20 g. Males are greenish with yellow flanks and a pale underside, females tend to be browner, although the degree of difference between the sexes varies geographically.
Source:
​Wikipedia

The New Zealand wrens, Acanthisittidae, are a group that has been isolated for so long from its unknown primitive passerine (the ‘singing’ birds, which make up over half of all living bird species) ancestral stock as to have become an endemic infraorder. This family, including the rifleman, the rock wren (seen on postage stamps), and the bush wren (as well as several extinct species), consists of small, poor-flying and flightless insect-eating birds that have been distributed up and down the length of New Zealand, but are now much more restricted. 
Source:
NEW ZEALAND SCIENCE TEACHER
This extract is from a really interesting short article about the evolution of wrens in New Zealand. I recommend reading it – it’s quick, and accessible. The first thing I thought when I looked at these photos was how much they reminded me of the wee rifleman that I drew as part of my native birds design.

As usual, feet are the fiddliest bit.

But I think they have come out nicely!

Lots of fiddling with shades, and a brand-new palette for this one – apart from the beak and eyes.

And we’re all sorted!

​Pitt Island is the second largest island in the Chatham Archipelago, New Zealand. It is called Rangiauria in Māori and Rangiaotea in Moriori.
Source:
Wikipedia

We have seen several other species from the Chatham Islands in this series:

• chatham islands black robin
• chatham island oystercatcher or torea
• chatham island shag
• kermadec white-faced storm petrel​

The Pitt Island shag is a critically endangered shag restricted to the Chatham Islands. As the only small slender grey shag with yellow feet in the islands, it is easily recognised. Despite its declining population, it can readily be found breeding and roosting in small groups along the rocky coast line throughout the group. It is a marine species that breeds and roosts on rocky headlands and offshore islets and within parts of the brackish Te Whanga Lagoon.
Source:
NZ Birds online

​No consistent distinction exists between cormorants and shags. The names ‘cormorant’ and ‘shag’ were originally the common names of the two species of the family found in Great Britain, Phalacrocorax carbo (now referred to by ornithologists as the great cormorant) and P. aristotelis (the European shag). “Shag” refers to the bird’s crest, which the British forms of the great cormorant lack. As other species were encountered by English-speaking sailors and explorers elsewhere in the world, some were called cormorants and some shags, depending on whether they had crests or not. Sometimes the same species is called a cormorant in one part of the world and a shag in another, e.g., the great cormorant is called the black shag in New Zealand (the birds found in Australasia have a crest that is absent in European members of the species).
Source:
​Wikipedia

A small, slender grey marine shag of the Chatham Islands, with yellow feet and a very slender bill. In breeding plumage it has a blackish head with a prominent double crest.
​​Source:
NZ Birds online

This bird puts on a show for breeding season, so I think I will draw it in all its finery, double crest and all.

This one required colours from several designs, which was fun to figure out.

And there we go – one quirky wee shag.