I’ll be at the Leavenworth Spring Bird Fest!  What’s more, two new originals will be on sale there.  Events like these force me to part with paintings so are a essentially a rare opportunity to buy Newbold originals.  (I don’t hang on to my originals out of sheer narcissism.  I tend to believe I can still make improvements on them down the road, which can at times be nothing more than a pathology.)

This is a painting I began in 2009 and was languishing with a white background.  I blackened the background—(more like the photo I was working from)—and suddenly I’m thinking this could be the best of the 6 or 10 Western Tanager paintings I ever did. 14 x 16″ painting size. $750 framed in gray drift with white liner

This is appropriately based on a photo I took of Swallows in Leavenworth at the Festival last year.  The day was miserably cold and the Swallows were struggling, but you can’t tell that from the photo and in the painting, life is wonderful, the way it should be for Swallows and all of us.  17 x 24″ painting size.$850 framed in gray drift with white liner

This is the third original for sale, “Red-naped Sapsucker” celebrates one of America’s least-appreciated glamour-birds.  On a recent trip to the Eastern slope of the Cascades, we saw what may have been two males in a dispute, both with their head and neck feathers in a crest.  My trusty friend auto-focus let me down that time so there is no shot, but it was a sight to behold.   16 x 20 painting size, masonite. $750 with wood frame and liner.

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Here is information on where these paintings will be hanging with other great paintings by Leavenworth area wildlife artists: here’s a note from the organizer, Heather MacAuliffe.

 “Nature Artists at Icicle Studios”.  We have a wonderful “stable of artists” this year, with 21 of us presenting our art! Please read the blurbs out of the Bird Fest pamphlet below. 

The show is open noon to 5 pm on two weekends, plus Thurs/Fri of Bird Fest.  May 12-13 (Saturday and Sunday) and May 17-20 (Thursday thru Sunday).  See the website – http://www.leavenworthspringbirdfest.com/ARTS.HTM

Here on Beacon Hill, the first big wave of the Warbler migration hit on the 26^th of April.  As usual the majority of birds are Yellow-rumped Warblers (one male shown scanning for danger before bathing) headed north and upward to the mtns,  but Orange-crowned Warblers and Wilson’s Warblers are also coming through and have stopped at our creek to bathe.  

Warblers are compulsive bathers.  We have no data but tend to believe that if a bird is hanging out in our neighborhood, it might be likely to bathe in our creek up to five times a day.  Either that or there are a lot more birds than we think.  With the migration in force our backyard recirculating creek, “Butyl Creek” was  hosting a bather or prospective bather most of the time yesterday.

In other bird news  the Rufous Hummingbirds are back.  There was a suggestion on the bird-chat-line Tweeters that populations of Rufous may be way down in some places, and that’s a shoe waiting to drop I’ve been apprehensive about for awhile.  This  male was at Lake Sammamish State Park, where there seemed to be decent numbers, thankfully.

Lastly, is it possible these two Common Mergansers aren’t actually stuck up about how good-looking they are, but are instead holding their heads so they can best see underwater fish?   I’m going with stuck-up.

In any case, an overflying Eagle made them break the pose for a minute.  At Lake Sammamish State Park.

Our male Violet-green Swallow came to wait for a mate on March 28, a nice day in a cold stretch, and then again on April 5.  But either she came to him or he found her and brought her back but they spent April 9 sitting within a foot of each other much of the day on the wire out front of our house.  Our house is a traditional site and they have three clean empty boxes to choose from on the front and two on the back.

Next step is to put out feathers for them to line their nest with.  A friend of ours Teri lives out around Winthrop and her husband Ken hunts ducks so these birds should be getting only the best.

My self-anointed role in the process is to worry.  There’s bad weather, speeding automobiles, cats that present danger when the Violet-greens are picking up nesting materials,  Merlins, Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks, and other dangers that I haven’t even thought of.

This is from a former year, so not the same dad, although possibly a blood relative of our guy out front.

After a couple years of work I finally called it quits on the Rockfish painting and it will be available as an offset-litho signed 14 x 18 poster within 2 weeks.  I’ll be thrilled a little more even than usual to be able to put this out and will humbly await the public’s verdict on it. 

The wheelbarrow painting seems to be charmed.  When this happens, I just feel like the one who happens to be the steward who better not ruin it bringing it in to the dock.

Despite my love of the subject, the swallow painting is presenting technical issues.  I like it, but there’s a crudeness to the technical work that annoys me a bit.  I’m optimistic, though.

I painted this Tanager from Leavenworth (see my blog under News, I’ll be there for the Spring Bird Fest) and didn’t like it at all.  Recently I decided to blacken the background and now it suddenly has me pretty excited. 

This is the painting I need to really work on.  It’s the largest painting I’ve worked on in several decades.  I’d say I’m nervous about this one.

The Leavenworth Spring Birding Festival May 17-20 is set to be better than ever this year!   Check out the website at

  http://www.Leavenworthspringbirdfest.com/

One closely-guarded secret about Leavenworth is that the whole town has incorporated a Bavarian theme into its architecture, food and city-culture, which when combined with the Alps-like- Cascade Mtn. scenery results in spectacular visuals no matter what direction you look.

Another is the is ease of seeing spectacular birds in and around Leavenworth.  This Western Tanager was photographed in town along the River.

This photo from my last year’s trip to Leavenworth served as ref for a painting that should be done by the Festival.  A Tree and other Swallows were resting  near a viewpont over the Wenatchee River in town.  I’ve been honored to be the official bird artist again this year.

See you in Leavenworth!

Ed Newbold is thrilled to announce that the British Birding Association’s UK400 Club is using his painting of a Nighthawk on its home page as a logo for member sign-in and sign-up.    The UK400 Club strives to maintain the life-lists of the top 100 United Kingdom birders, as well as the top 500 Palearctic birders and the top 1000 world birders.   Promotion of conservation is also a key goal of the  Club.  The website, at

          http://www.uk400clubonline.co.uk/

shows a really nice blend of emphasis on sport and conservation.

The Nighthawk painting is detail from the 2011 Nighthawk painting of Ed Newbold’s which also features Ed’s copy of the famous Edward Hopper painting “Nighthawks.”  (see posters this website).

Delia and I went up to Two Rivers Wildlife Management Unit south of Monroe, WA yesterday and experienced moments of Two Rivers magic.   We got out of the car and were helpfully shown a Bittern in the slough by some other birders.  We would have sailed by and never seen her.    

Then we got into the oldgrowth  Big-leaf Maple forest in the heart of the refuge and suddenly the woods was alive with the call note of Evening Grosbeaks.  Here an Evening Grosbeak is chowing down on, I’m  totally guessing, a sprig of Maple.

I wasn’t expecting the shots to be retrievable in the dark shadows of the mossy fern-filled forest, but digital changes everything, doesn’t it?

I was only able to photo males.  I particularly love Evening Grosbeaks.  My early days birding coincided with their decline in Eastern Pennsylvania, and for years it was my nemesis bird, the one everyone told me they had seen, but I never could find.  It doesn’t hurt that it has the greatest, loud, piercing whistled call-note and looks quite tropical.

Speaking of which we found a Varied Thrush there also.

I couldn’t decide which shot was better.

Here’s the Bittern.  One thing you still can’t do in digital is significantly sharpen a shot after the fact.  We also saw great ducks including Canvasbacks, Ruddy, Ring-necked  & Wood Ducks, Common Goldeneye, Hooded Merganser, Green-winged Teal, and Lesser Scaup.and at one point after a little sun had shone we looked high overhead to see 4 Bald Eagles, 3 Red-tailed Hawks and 3 Ravens soaring above us in the same thermal.  We had Fox, Lincolns, Song, Golden-crowned, White-crowned Sparrow and Junco.   Flickers seem to prosper at Two Rivers and we had a Northern Harrier that could be a resident bird, I would guess.

This  Spotted Towhee on the path was one handsome dude.  A Tree Swallow flock was in the area, which was reassuring to me because I worry about how the various Swallow populations are doing.

We really like Two Rivers.  Every direction you look is nice.  This is looking East.

I’ve mainly been working on Rockfish and other preparations for the next offset litho printing coming soon.  But there are some all-new paintings in the studio.  The most critical is a 60 inch wide gatorboard painting I’m just beginning of the Seattle Skyline.  So far, that’s just pencil lines. 

This is a freehand copy of an Ed Newbold (that’s me) painting from 1987.  Prints of the old one are still on sale and selling ok both on-line and at the Pike Place Market but I live by my own clichés, in this case, “If it’s not broke, repaint it anyway.”  Besides, the limited edition of that image sold out  in 1995.  Whether this will ever make the cut to be published and go on sale seems quite up in the air.  We’ll see. 

People say artists should paint what they love and let the chips fall where they may, a sentiment I heartily disagree with.  But if anybody wants to see a painting of what I love, here it is.  I love avian aerial insectivores,  and here is a congregation of them.   This is based on a scene from Leavenworth, WA on the Wenatchee River.  There are four species of swallows here (Tree Swallow, male and first-year female, Rough-winged Swallows, Violet-green Swallows male and female, and a landing Bank Swallow) resting after foraging over the river on what was a cold dreary spring day, but nobody looking at the painting needs to know that.

Talk about a painting that may or may not make it.  This wheelbarrow, which  I got some ref shots of in 2011, is going to be packing a load of tulips and daffodils.  Behind it will be an empty daytable and a fish stall.  Classic Pike Place, but whether I can pull off the scene is an open question.  In the ref photo I look at, the manhole cover and the bricks laid out around it are really quite charming.   But bricks are hard to paint and will folks want to pay good money for a manhole- cover-painting?

Not every venture into nature is equally divine.   Today Delia and I and our friend Sherry Lee visited the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge and saw lots of great sights but also some signs that some of the critters were as annoyed by the weather as we were.  We got close to a wet Cooper’s Hawk who’s photo I’ll spare you.  The Tree Swallows were audible overhead but weren’t even fighting over nesting cavities,  and the Violet-green Swallows weren’t making as much of the beautiful sounds as you’d expect to hear from a foraging V-g Swallow flock.  At the beginning of the boardwalk we spotted the Great Egret that’s living there and called it a day as cold rain began to fall and each of us questioned the clothing decisions we’d made in the optimism of the morning.

Here’s something interesting we saw.  This Great Blue Heron high in a tree was engaged in what seemed like strange behavior.  Was this some kind of courting ritual?  Then Delia saw a circling Bald Eagle high above and realized that it was attentively tracking the Eagle’s every move.  Herons are getting hammered by Bald Eagles now that the Eagles have, let’s say, come charging off the endangered species list.

I think I knew that Northern Shoveler’s heads could shine purple as well as green, but I was still surprised by this handsome male Shoveler whose head seemed to never appear green at all, but always this very strong purple.

The Yellow-rumped Warbler migration has started in earnest, and perhaps because of the cold, many were down low and relatively easy to photograph.  I say relatively, as this bird is always on the move chasing down its insect prey.

Pike Place Market Wildlife Artist Ed Newbold has donated an original painting to the Skagit Land Trust.  The Trust, which is embarking on an exciting new project this year, (google Skagit Land Trust) will hang the painting in their office for the year of 2012 and then it will be auctioned off at the annual auction in February of 2013 in Mt. Vernon, WA.

The painting is of three Trumpeter Swans flying over the Skagit Delta in the Wiley Slough area, although it’s not of a scene that actually exists—it being a painting and all.  It’s an 18 x 24″ acrylic and gouache on masonite.  Ed worked on the painting in a burst in 2002 and it was published in Notecard Series 1.  It was always intended as a study in whites with two very different but both very white subjects, Mt. Baker in winter and the huge swans.  Ed continued to work on the painting now and again including very hard in February 2012 when Ed finally decided to agree with the cliché that all good things must come to an end.