sketch – Page 6 – Katherine Hocker

Big Little Discovery

So back in July, we were surveying for American dippers on a creek
near Juneau. We hiked to the top of a cliff near a waterfall, at the
base of which we knew there was a dipper nest. As I topped the cliff, a
small brown bird burst out from a ledge below us and zinged downstream.
The bird's size, field marks, and style of flight–plus the
greenish-blue speckled egg it left behind in a hollow of moss–identified it as a marbled murrelet.

Murrelet nests are hard to find (just over 50 have been found in
Southeast Alaska, where these little puffin-cousins are among the most
abundant seabirds). We were thrilled to have found it, but very concerned that we had caused the birds to abandon it.

But they hadn't. So for the past several weeks, we've been checking
in on the single chick in the nest. Today it is looking pretty ready to
depart, so it may be gone by tomorrow…

Fall Colors

It's a gorgeous day today–a welcome relief from the sogginess and high winds of the past couple of weeks. But it's clearly no longer summer. Fireweed fluff is bursting from the pods as the sun dries them, the shadows are distinctly chilly, and reds (from blazing cadmium to cool maroon) are standing out in the foliage. Here are a few leaves (and one thrush wing feather) found on my walk today.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), goat'sbeard (Aruncus dioicus), fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium), and trailing black currant (Ribes laxiflorum); primary feather from a varied thrush (Ixorius naevius). Watercolor and colored pencil on hemp paper.

Troubled Sedges

Found some unusual sedge perigynia on a walk last Saturday. Looks like a fungal infection; a rust or smut, perhaps? I found some more yesterday (after I did this sketch page). It was drier than the plants I drew, and when I touched the infected perigynia, my fingertips came away smudged with sooty dust.

Muskeg Ants

Went for a walk yesterday evening on the muskeg above the house. Lots of berries this year, and signs that somebody has been digging for ants again: little excavations in the sphagnum. Birds? Dextrous bears? The sight reminded me of a sketch-page investigation of the muskeg ants:

Drawing Through

I like to think that when we draw from nature, we're drawing nature through ourselves–through eyes and brain and heart, and down the arm onto the page. If that's so, then every time we draw something, we take a little bit of it inside. It has become part of us; we understand it in a new and important way. We've made a connection.

Looked at that way, it doesn't necessarily matter what the end result looks like. The important part is the drawing through.

From the Land of Salt and Spruce

Seems to me that Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) are the defining tree species of Southeast Alaska's forests. Although western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) are more abundant, spruce are more prominent. They grow where we like to go: along coastlines, on riverbanks, on the outwash plains of glaciers. And they follow where we've been: old village sites, abandoned mining ruins, forgotten roads.

My favorite spruce are the ones that colonize this region's uplift meadows (extravagant, lush parklands created as former tidelands are lifted from the sea by glacial rebound). These "wolf spruce" are sturdy, cheerfully-symmetrical little trees, bristling with vigor and growing almost fast enough to watch. I drew this one (and a cone from an older cousin) a few years ago near the Brotherhood Bridge, north of Juneau.