5. Capybara poo At number 5 is capybara poo. Cabybaras are the largest rodents in the world and super cute. They are related to guinea pigs but much much larger. Capybaras are native to South America and live a semi-aquatic lifestyle. They are herbivores meaning they...
I started drawing in 2019 as a mindful activity to reduce stress. I followed a Kingfisher tutorial and got completely hooked. I had no idea about all the equipment required for professional drawings, special professional grade (and expensive) pencils, the right paper,...
Old Blue was now 9 years of age, old for a species that has an average life span of 4 years. Shortly after being transferred to Managere island one of Blue and Yellows’ nests was destroyed in a storm. The robins built a replacement nest and Blue laid two more eggs....
Antennae, we’ve seen them on insects but what do they actually do? It turns out they are a pretty amazing piece of anatomy. They connect into the brain and have the ability to augment senses like navigation, orientation, smell and even taste!What are Antennae? In the...
Why use a heated drawing board? For coloured pencil artists, a heated drawing board melts the pencils making it quicker to layer on surfaces like pastelmat and makes pencils easier to blend. It works brilliantly with neopastels on drafting film for smoothing and...
What is rendering? The final week of the Natural History Illustration course involved rendering an animal of our choice. Rendering is the process of adding the fine details of colour, fur, feathers and shading. For this course we were only allowed to use graphite,...
I recently completed a fantastic course, Drawing Nature, Science and Culture: Natural History 101. It’s an online course run by the University of Newcastle in Australia on the edX platform and is aimed at artists who want to improve their observational skills in order...
Have you heard of the Tizzie-Whizie? The tizzie-whizie is a very rare creature found only in Bowness Bay, Lake Windemere in the UK. It is described as having the body of a hedgehog, the tail of a squirrel or fox, insect-like wings and antennae. It was first discovered...
Black robins are native to a group of islands off the East coast of New Zealand called the Chatham Islands. The islands were originally called Rekohu (“Misty Sun”) by the Moriori people. For thousands of years the black robins flourished on the forested Islands. There were no predators, so their wings became smaller and only capable of short flight.
Chatham Islands map photo credit: Alexrk
Then humans came to the islands and began clearing away the forested areas where the black robins lived for farming. The black robins were no match for the predators the humans brought with them who would hunt adult birds and eat eggs and chicks in the nest.
By 1900, there was only one island left were the black robins could live, Little Mangere Island. The island was too inhospitable for humans. But there was a problem, the forest on Little Mangere was dying.
Credit: Pixabay Brita Seifert
A vine was strangling the trees so that when the wind blew, the trees were literally ripped from the ground. The roots were being undermined by mutton bird burrows. Food and nesting sites became increasingly scarce. By the spring of 1972, there were only 17 black robins left in the world.
The black robin had become the rarest bird in the world.
The New Zealand Wildlife Service was monitoring the bird populations on the Chatham Islands. To keep track of the black robins the put coloured bands around their legs and named the birds after the colour of their bands.
In 1975 they discovered that there were only 7 black robins left. The leader of the Wildlife team, Don Merton, decided something had to be done.
Don Merton and his team planted 20,000 shrubs on the nearby island of Mangere Island to create the right habitat for the black robins. There was a small amount of forest already on Mangere but the little robins were not strong enough to fly the 50 metres in the strong sea winds themselves, so the team decided to catch them and transport them by boat to Mangere.
The robins were considered so precious that they were transported to Mangere one by one.
By 1979, after 3 years of being on Mangere Island, the number of black robins had dropped to just 5, two females and three males. Of the two females, Green and Blue, neither was successfully breeding.
Then Blue, now 9 years old, did something unusual, she decided to change mates to a younger male, Yellow. And that was the beginning of hope for the black robin because the eggs of Blue and Yellow hatched into healthy chicks.
But black robins only raise two chicks a year and Blue was already old by black robin standards.
And that’s when Don Merton had an idea.
5. Capybara poo At number 5 is capybara poo. Cabybaras are the largest rodents in the world and super cute. They are related to guinea pigs but much much larger. Capybaras are native to South America and live a semi-aquatic lifestyle. They are herbivores meaning they...
I started drawing in 2019 as a mindful activity to reduce stress. I followed a Kingfisher tutorial and got completely hooked. I had no idea about all the equipment required for professional drawings, special professional grade (and expensive) pencils, the right paper,...
Old Blue was now 9 years of age, old for a species that has an average life span of 4 years. Shortly after being transferred to Managere island one of Blue and Yellows’ nests was destroyed in a storm. The robins built a replacement nest and Blue laid two more eggs....
Antennae, we’ve seen them on insects but what do they actually do? It turns out they are a pretty amazing piece of anatomy. They connect into the brain and have the ability to augment senses like navigation, orientation, smell and even taste!What are Antennae? In the...
Why use a heated drawing board? For coloured pencil artists, a heated drawing board melts the pencils making it quicker to layer on surfaces like pastelmat and makes pencils easier to blend. It works brilliantly with neopastels on drafting film for smoothing and...
What is rendering? The final week of the Natural History Illustration course involved rendering an animal of our choice. Rendering is the process of adding the fine details of colour, fur, feathers and shading. For this course we were only allowed to use graphite,...
I recently completed a fantastic course, Drawing Nature, Science and Culture: Natural History 101. It’s an online course run by the University of Newcastle in Australia on the edX platform and is aimed at artists who want to improve their observational skills in order...
Have you heard of the Tizzie-Whizie? The tizzie-whizie is a very rare creature found only in Bowness Bay, Lake Windemere in the UK. It is described as having the body of a hedgehog, the tail of a squirrel or fox, insect-like wings and antennae. It was first discovered...
