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,...
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...
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...
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. Don realised that, by using cross-fostering, Blue and Yellow could produce 6 eggs a year instead of 2.
Cross-fostering is here the eggs are moved from one bird nest to another different bird nest to be hatched by different parents.
The robin eggs were carefully removed from the nests using a plastic measuring scoop. They were then placed in warm incubator boxes and transferred to Warbler nests. Unfortunately, the Warblers, being smaller than the black robins, couldn’t feed them enough food and they died at about 10 days.
Credit: dfkt Unsplash
Next the team tried Tomtits which are larger than Warblers. The Tomtits were on nearby Rangatira Island so the team had to develop a portable incubator to transport the eggs. Tomtits were very good parents, and the numbers of black robins started to grow.
But unfortunately, they were too good! Some black robin chicks grew up thinking that they were Tom Tits and wouldn’t breed with black robins.
So the team decided to synchronise hatching dates so that robin chicks were the same age and could be put back into the small amount of black robin nests. The black robin nests had been built for two chicks so they had to be stretched to accommodate 4 or 5 chicks.
Blue and Yellow never faltered in raising the chicks placed in their nests throughout all the changes in eggs and chicks.
With more chicks to feed, the robins needed lots more food, so the team fed them several times a day through the six weeks of the fledgling phase.
This cross-fostering project continued until the late 1980s when there were around 100 birds. Although still endangered, there are currently estimated to be 250-300 black robins thanks to the incredible efforts of Don Merton and the team from the New Zealand Wildlife Service. They live on Mangere and Rangatira Islands which are nature reserves and free from predators.
And, of course, to Old Blue who lived to an astonishing 13 years old and raised 11 chicks.
All of the current Black Robins are descendants of Old Blue and Old Yellow who without doubt saved their species.
There is a plaque dedicated to Old Blue in Chatham Island Airport.
I would like to leave you with the inspiring words of Don Merton…
“Action is what brings change, and saves endangered animals, not words”
Follow the story at: https://www.sniffyfacesart.com/blog/
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,...
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...
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...