Wednesday, May 15, 2013

yellow birds

When I wrote a post about the color yellow dominating our landscape, I forgot to mention our bright yellow finches. We have four (at this moment) bird feeders on our deck, and two birdbaths, one heated in the winter and one out in the garden, for summer. All this results in plenty of bird activity. One of the most pleasing sights is around the finch feeder which has special thistle seeds just to their taste. In the spring the males of this species change from a winter grayish brown to a bright over-the-top yellow. Females get a tinge of brighter color on them too but it is easy to tell them apart. The males are so eye-catching, they look like  yellow plastic toys, or candy, the color is almost artificial in that shiny hue.
   I sketched this yellow finch on my ipad using the app called ArtRage.

Once in a while, over my cup of coffee at the breakfast table, looking out to the deck, I get a primary color jolt of a treat. I will see a Blue Jay grabbing a peanut at one feeder, a scarlet flash of a male Cardinal at another station, and a gathering of crayon box purest yellow finches at the thistle feeder.