Draw a Bird Day November – Almost a Juniper Titmouse

Myriam (Myr's Bytes)

IMG_7138b

A Juniper Titmouse (Baeolophus ridgwayi) is gray. However, I still haven’t acquired gray and white color pencils so I use brown, yellow and pinky-beige instead. I’ve never seen a titmouse, of any species. It seems they mostly live in the US except for little sections of eastern Canada. Their tiny size and funky, little head crests are delightfully cute so I drew one from the National Geographic Birds of North America Field Guide. I did imagine seeing one once in someone’s Calgary backyard. I thought I glimpsed a wee light-gray bird with a cute little crest through some bush branches… Mystery bird.

Laura at Create Art Everyday is the creative spark behind this monthly feathered-drawing event. She sketched some living, moving titmice in her backyard this month. Very cool! You can see her titmice here, as well as links to October’s Draw a Bird Day bird-art. The official Draw a Bird Day is on April 8th – M. R. Emberson wrote an interesting blog post about it on A-wing and A-way.

Baeolophus means ‘little crest’. Ridgwayi comes from the ornithologist Robert Ridgway. Etymology is fun sometimes.

29 Comments

  1. This is so adorable! One of my (many) favorite birds. I remember seeing these when I visited my grandmother in the States. You did a beautiful job with the colored pencils, this is lovely and seems ready to take flight.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Fantastic! I love the coloring of your drawing! I live in the states, and we do have titmouses in my area. They are beautiful little creatures. However, they are very skittish and difficult to photograph. I am hoping to get a shot or two this winter when they are easier to spot.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. As a linguistics major and a writer, I agree that etymology is fun! 🙂 Your titmouse is adorable! We’ve seen those on our trips to the southwest. We have the very gregarious Tufted Titmice where we are. They always make me smile. But my favorite is the Bridled Titmouse because of its unusual markings.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks Laura :-)! You’re so sweet. I’ve been enjoying the book you recommended “The Bluebird Effect – Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds”. Julie Zickefoose has so many interesting bird stories. And her illustrations are beautiful.

      Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.