Tags
birds, colored pencil, drawing, gardening, illustration, Val Webb
Mockingbird nest study – colored pencil
It’s been fun drawing the handiwork of a mockingbird architect. We take them for granted now, since they are so plentiful, but in the nineteenth century there was a thriving commercial mockingbird trade that nearly resulted in the bird’s disappearance in parts of the United States. Admired for their musical repertoire — a male mockingbird may learn 200 songs during his lifetime — they were popular cage birds, bringing as much as $50 apiece in northeastern cities.
(Although my neighborhood is often awash in mockingbird song, I appreciate these busy birds for another reason: they love the taste of tomato hornworms and patrol my vegetable patch every afternoon.)
please send information on any classes that you are offering. thank you
The drawing is gorgeous!
The historical information is very interesting. I can’t imagine that an intelligent and aggressively territorial bird like the mocker would have been able to do well in captivity as a pet.