Surfbirds.com - Sketchbook by Claire Curry

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Claire Curry lives near Greenwood, a rural community in north-central Texas. Her mother got her interested in birds when she was about five years old. Claire first started drawing birds by copying pictures in books and from there progressed to taking field notes and, for the last three years, field sketching. She usually uses graphite pencil and colored pencils for sketching, and sometimes watercolors.
The Black-chinned Hummingbird nest was found by my mom. We got to watch it build its nest, but unfortunately the nest was later abandoned, likely because of recent thunderstorms.

My mom and I discovered the Red-tailed Hawk nest in February and watched it all spring. The young Red-tailed Hawks were getting feathered when I made this sketch. Their heads had fewer feathers, though, so they looked almost like vultures. One of them was more active than its sibling, and it even hopped onto branches above the nest and out of sight.

The White-crowned Sparrows are winter residents in our area. For some reason they normally don't visit the yard until spring, so they are always quite a delight to see there.
The female Northern Bobwhite visited our yard early one morning. She was accompanied by a male, and they foraged in the yard for about ten or fifteen minutes. Although bobwhites are fairly common on our property, they don't visit the yard very often.