May 2026

 

I Can See Clearly Now 🎵

May's big deal was getting the scales removed from my eyes: almost literally, as I had cataract surgery in both eyes. After the surgery, the world felt new: sharp, vivid, full of contrast. Every time I stepped outside, every short walk through the neighborhood, was an experience of joy. I know the image above is just an ordinary photo of flowers, but when I took it freshly after my first surgery, they seemed like the most vibrant flowers I had ever seen. 

One of the really exciting changes seeing with new eyes is how many more birds I am seeing. Difficulty seeing contrast was making it hard for me to see birds in the trees, on the ground, even flying in the sky at a distance. It has renewed my enjoyment of birding. Though I didn't like to admit it, I hadn't been enjoying it as much for awhile. And what a good time for this change, with Spring migration going on.

Shortly after my first surgery, I had a chance to enjoy this particularly vivid bird: A Lewis Woodpecker that stopped over at Tingley Open Space for a few days.

Nearby, a Cooper's Hawk, still in Juvenile Plumage (though likely born last year), was eating fresh-caught something or other.

 

 

Though you would think that a bright red Summer Tanager male could be easy to see, they have a surprising way of blending into the forest. I am seeing them so much more frequently now. 

And certainly seeing more of the neutral-toned flycatchers, like this Ash-Throated Flycatcher and this recently arrived Western Wood-Pewee. 

I got the joy of a close view of this Black-Crowned Night Heron recently, at the edge of one of the Tingley Fishing Ponds. Fishing, of course, so in the right place. 

Baby Bird Time Begins!

The Great-Horned Owls and the Neotropic Cormorants are some of the earliest nesters, and so that is who is showcased here.

 

 Great-Horned Owls 

Feeding Time at the Cormorant Roost 

 

The Nest Next Door

The Pigeons are nesting in the crook of a pine across from my balcony again. All day long, through heat, wind and rain, the female steadfastly broods her eggs. The male takes over at night, and I believe I've seen him there at dusk. I've watched the female hang tight while buffeted by heavy winds, and last week I watched her remaining still while being pelted by rain. (Though it may be hard to tell, that is what is happening here in the second photo.)

During that same rain, a wet and bedraggled White-Winged Dove braved the elements to visit the feeder area next door.

Painting with New Eyes

As I went through the two surgeries and adjusting to the new circumstances of my vision (good distance and poor close vision), I enjoyed watercolor painting under varied conditions.

 

Condition #1-No Corrective Lens

I painted this two days after my first surgery, with clear vision in my right eye, very blurry vision in my left, and very bad close vision. I worked from a poster on my wall of David Hockney's Mt. Fuji and Flowers. I did not use readers to help with the close vision, wanting to see how I could do without the correction.

 

Condition #2-With Reading Glasses

Because I was painting this one from a photo reference on my iPhone, I could use the reading glasses to look at both the subject and my painting.

 

 

Condition #3: Alternating Between No Correction and Reading Glasses

With my sketchers group at Cimino Compound, I made the first attempt at the most challenging condition: Looking over my reading glasses at a distant subject, then back to my painting through the reading glasses (keeping the glasses on the tip of my nose). What a coordination challenge it was, especially because in my mind, glasses are still to be used for distant vision.

 

 

Style Experiments

I'll show two more paintings from the end of May, where I was trying out some different styles. In the first, I first sketched an outline in black ink before adding watercolor. In the second, I went directly to watercolor without any preliminary sketching.

  

That's it for now. We'll see what adventures unfold in June!
 

 

 

April 2026

Cattle Egrets-Los Poblanos Open Space

Bird activity starts to get exciting in April, with shorebirds and other migrants moving through, rare songbirds popping up here and there, year-round residents already into their nesting activities, and summer residents returning from points south. 

Migrating Shorebirds-Los Poblanos Open Space 

April is when shorebirds start to migrate through. Their stopover spot must meet certain conditions, including shallow water, or waters with a nice open shore. The dry conditions here in Albuquerque limit the availability of good stopover spots, but when these conditions appear, word gets out quickly. When Los Poblano Open Space flooded their fields at the beginning of April, a variety of shorebirds and other avian species were quick to take advantage.

Top to bottom: Blue-Winged Teal, Franklin's Gull, Long-Billed Curlew, Solitary Sandpiper, White-Faced Ibis, Yellow-Headed Blackbird.  

 

While out at Los Poblanos Open Space for the birds, I also got to see my first ever Roseate Skimmer, a very colorful dragonfly, in the community garden.

 Rare and Out-of-Place Songbirds

April also saw an uptick in rare warblers and other songbirds, birds out of their usual range, that perhaps took a wrong turn somewhere in their migration. The UNM campus has been host to three rare warblers: A Hooded Warbler, a Northern Parula, and a Prothonotory Warbler. Right in our neighborhood, a friend found an Eastern Phoebe earlier in April, and an Eastern Kingbird was hanging out awhile at Los Poblanos Open  Space.

Here are the ones that I was able to photograph, top to bottom: Prothonotory Warber, Northern Parula, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Kingbird.

 

Summer Arrivals and Nesting Season

Finally, April is when nesting season begins in earnest. New summer arrivals and year-round residents alike can be found at different stages of their breeding and nesting cycles. 

The Ash-Throated Flycatchers have just arrived recently, but this one is already using a nesting box on the Candelaria Wetlands, and appeared to be staying near to guard it.

 

The Swainson's Hawk pair that routinely nest on the Candelaria Nature Preserve returned right on schedule. Shortly after their arrival, our survey team found them hanging out together near their nest of the last few years.. 

 

Great Horned-Owls start nesting early, and this nest on Albuquerque's westside already has a pair of owlets that may be ready to leave the nest soon.

April Paintings

I didn't add too many paintings to my watercolor journal this month, but here are a few.

 

 R.I.P Lolly 4/28/26

I don't normally post very much personal stuff here, but this month is an exception. For me, April was all about dealing with my sweet 17 yo kitty's last days with cancer.

I got Lolly 9 years ago from Animal Humane, and she has been my constant home companion ever since. Her calm sweet presence supported me through the Covid stay-at-home and through two periods of recovery from bone fractures. 

 

In her last couple of weeks, Lolly's favorite thing to do was to lie in the sun on our balcony. 

Things took a turn for the worse last Satuday. That evening I was hanging a fitted sheet out on the balcony to complete drying. Before I could get the bottom half off the balcony floor, Lolly climbed in, requisitioning a corner of the sheet for a hammock. This "hammock" became her refuge in those last painful days until I could get the vet out to euthanize her. Lolly was never a cat to seek out enclosed spaces (not even boxes!) so it was clear to me that she was hiding out because she was in pain. By the time my wonderfully compassionate vet came over, I had no doubt that she was ready to go.

 

What I've been noticing in the days since she's been gone is how I associate just about everything I do at home with Lolly, even things that have nothing to do with her. I was cleaning today and realized what it was: I no longer have a supervisor! Whether it was Tai Chi, cleaning,unloading groceries, preparing food, or even just doing the NYT online games, those eyes were always there, watching, monitoring, supervising. I'm glad she's not suffering anymore, but I so miss my soft snuggly supervisor!

 

 

 

March 2026

 

The biggest news of the month is that I got back into watercolor painting. I'll start with news of the birds (this painting of a Vermilion Flycatcher male is based on one of my best sightings of the month), and move on to the paintings.

Ducks at Winter's End

The Cinnamon Teat have been hanging out at the Rio Grande Nature Center and being quite lovely.

 

The Gadwall are still around. Here they perform simultaneous dabbling, resulting in the quintessential duck butt photo.

 

 

On the other side of the bosque near Montano, I was happy to find not just one Mexican Duck, but a male/female pair. These ducks are found mostly further south, and the ones we find in Albuquerque are mostly somewhat hybridized with Mallards. The male looks overall like a female mallard, but with a bright yellow bill. The bill is also a good way to differentiate the female Mexican from the female Mallard. The Mexican Duck female is orange like the Mallard's but lacks the block mottling of the Mallard female bill. 

As we head into spring, most ducks will leave the Albuquerque area, with the exception of Wood Ducks and Mallards. These Wood Ducks have been enjaged in the early spring activity of looking for a suitable nesting cavity in the bosque trees. Here you see then returning from the trees and preparing to go back into the pond.

 

Vermilion Flycatcher

In the first part of the month, a brilliant red rarity appeared in a park in Albuquerque's NE Heights. The Vermilion Flycatcher is fairly common in southern NM, More and more vagrant Vermilions are showing up further north in the winter and spring. They often hang around for awhile, though so far they aren't known to nest here. 

 

 

 

As Spring arrives, the survey has been a fun time to observe the rituals that come with breeding breeding season. The Red-Winged Blackbird males, who have laid low all winter, are now pulling out all the stops to show off their colors.

 

 

We always check this nest box and a nearby cavity on the  northwest end of our route for roosting raccoons. This raccoon really knows how to relax.

 

 To end the bird section of this post: A male Belted Kingfisher at Tingley.

 

 Watercolor Painting 

 I took a 5 week watercolor painting class February-March with Sean Hudson. The focus was landscape painting, which is something I have found challenging. The class was great and I was happy with what I was able to do. Here are a few of the paintings that I did during the class.

 

 Brush Miles

The instructor talked  about how the main key to improving our skills was putting in "brush miles." To put in my brush miles at home, I pulled out a sweet little blank page book that my sister gave me awhile back. I was waiting for an inspiration for how to use it

 

 

So now I'm filling my "elephant journal" with watercolor paintings. It's not high quality watercolor paper, but I kind of wanted that so as not to be so precious about the products of my practice. I've been pretty happy with what I've done so far. Here are a few of the paintings in the book.  

 

 

Plein Air-The Next Frontier?

I've been so far working from photos for watercolor painting. Plein air is a whole other challenge. With my sketchers group the last Sunday of March, I decided to attempt a plein air watercolor at the Rio Grande Nature Center. This is the painting that I started there. Full disclosure, what I painted while at the Nature Center I thought was an unmitigated disaster. I worked on it more at home and was able to save it somewhat. You can see the difference though, from what I've done using a photo for a model.