It may be Fat Bear Week, but for us it's also Dancing Woodcock Week! The American Woodcock (Scolopax minor), fairly common in our area during the summer and fall, is well known for is rocking dance behavior. No one is quite certain why they do this, but it has been conjectured to be foraging behavior to coax invertebrates to the surface, or alternatively to indicate to predators that they are aware of their presence. Both seem like pretty lame reasons to us. We just think they've got a groove going on. It's probably why one of their several colloquial names is timberdoodle.
Our Woodcocks are chromolithographs from Nests and Eggs of Birds of the United States by Thomas G. Gentry and published by J. A. Wagenseller of Philadelphia in 1882, which includes chromolithographs of around 50 paintings of North American birds, eggs, and nests by the American naturalist painter Edwin Sheppard.
We recently learned that not only do they dance, but they sing too!
The work of Owen Jones never ceases to amaze 🤩 This is his 1861 Victoria Psalter, executed in stunning chromolithography for the Queen of England. It features a striking “relievo” binding, made of heavily molded leather – it feels very similar to papier-mâché. Jones took inspiration for his illustrations from a variety of medieval manuscript sources. It’s the height of the Gothic Revival in book form!
Tobogganing, winter sport in The Victorian Era, chromolithograph by Henry "Hy" Sandham, 1886.
Tobogganing, the sport of sliding down snow-covered slopes and artificial-ice-covered chutes on a runnerless sled called a toboggan. In Europe, small sleds with runners are also called toboggans.
The Catbirds have been meowing under our windows of late, but the Towhees have been fairly inconspicuous this summer. There are a variety of catbird and towhee species around the globe, but in our neck of the woods we have the Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) and the Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). The Catbird is in the family Mimidae along with Mockingbirds and Thrashers, while the Towhee is a sparrow in the large Passerellidae family of New World Sparrows.
We present these brilliant chromolithographs of the Gray Catbird and the Eastern Towhee (referred to here as the Towhee Bunting) from Nests and Eggs of Birds of the United States by Thomas G. Gentry and published by J. A. Wagenseller of Philadelphia in 1882, which includes chromolithographs of around 50 paintings of North American birds, eggs, and nests by the American naturalist painter Edwin Sheppard. Eastern Towhees typically nest on or near the ground, which Sheppard depicts here.