Rain - Bird-watching and saving kittens

The onset of Mallorca's second spring has brought a week of rain. Its well deserved as it hasnt rained in 4 or 5 months. The plants and snails are loving it.

Last weekend, Hannah Bronner (friend and science illustrator ), took me to Natural de S' Albufera, one of the last remaining examples of untouched marsh-land in mallorca. I believe the image above entails the symbiotic relationship between scale insects and an ant colony.
This preserve featured permanent bird-wathing hides. We had Hannah, a local scientist, and heavy duty binoculars to help us identify over 2o different bird species.Hannah, Bruno, Carlotta and Victoria. Poor girls were getting board after hours in the hide.Surprisingly, many of the birds and plants here looked almost identical to ones in Florida.A mud-dripped castle outside the preserve.

On our way back, Hannah and I found this tiny black kitten, extremely bony, in a bunch of thorn bushes on the side of the road. We lured it out with some water in a cap and it drank rapidly. So we decided it had been abandoned and needed our help. Just in case it was going to put up a fight, we returned with some sandwich meat, a net, and a box. After a few awkward moments of it retreating back into the thorns in between each bite of meat, I reached out with my hand and it schmoozed up against it. Then we knew everything would be ok. I picked it up with two fingers and placed it in the box. It didnt meow or struggle. It purred in my hand all the way home.
I dont have pictures of the cat, but heres a video of it leaping around.



Bruno, the girls, Emma (the teacher), and their new puppy "Lucky" on an evening hike to the peek over looking Son MoraguesA hundred year old cooking furnace crumbling in the forest peek over Son Moragues

My new apartment, starting with the bathroom

Beetle project complete

I spent a couple hours chasing grasshoppers when I heard a buzzing noise that I excitedly recognized as a clumsy aeronautical insect, usually a big beetle. As I focused in on it, I saw what appeared to be a large iridescent scarab beetle, trying to get at the sweet fermenting goo inside this pear. But it was too high to get a picture...I had to get creative, i thought about stacking rocks or climbing the tree, until I saw an old fashion pear-picking latter. I climbed up and got two pictures before it flew away, leaving me feeling like i had lost a new friend. Good news is, I had what I needed to start my second illustration.
Color study
Compositional sketch
Final sketch on large sheet of velum, which is then transferred to the watercolor paper via meticulous penciling.
First layer of watercolor.
Four layers on the left, five layers on the pears and about 15 on the beetle.Darkened up the background with 10 more layers and put in the drop shadow on the Beetle. This wouldn't have been possible without the amazing technical assistance of the one and only Marie Metz. Thanks Marie! <3

After Math - Cray-Fishing

This I took of Coco holding up one of the hundreds of crayfish we caught.
After cray-fishing we went for a ride in Bruno's Neon green automobile. (I cant call it a car because it's made out of some kind of soft stryrophome plastic, and it has no doors or windows.) You have to jump into in and hold on as you wind down the steep curves of the road, especially if you have a five year old in your lap. At some parts the road seems smaller than the car itself. Although we look pretty calm in this photo, things get interesting if someone happens to be coming the other way and you have to go backwards with a rock-face on one side and a cliff on the other.
Left to Right: Coco, me, Victoria y Carlota. Brunos daugters. When Im lucky and the girls are in town, we make art together. Last time we made watercolor cards and envelopes.

Hike from Valldemossa to Deia

It took Bernd, Louis, and I 3,280.839 895 feet up and 8 hours across to hike from our village to the next. That was yesterday, and today my legs are aching like they never want to walk again :) but it was so worth it.

Over looking Son Moragues. Bernd points out some of his stone sculpturesThey say the smaller they are, the deadlier they are. This one was no bigger than my thumb.Some kind of crazy yellow fungus - and yes, I touched it.Scant plant life at the crest. Mostly thorny low-lieing shrubs. The wild Rosemary smelled amazing.One of the many rock cairns that led the way, sometimes there wasnt really a trail to follow, luckily Bernd new where he was going.Bernd and I smiling at the red lichen growing up the rocksOur final stop before hitching a ride back to Valldemosa. The pay off - A beautiful cove they call Cala de Deia.

La Playa

Last weekend Coco, Iana, Louis, Barnd, and others decided to have a BBQ on Aina's roof in Palma. We then projected the movie "Yellow Submarine" on the wall and danced infront of it until we passed out. The next morning, we hiked to a little beach cove and swam around in the crystal clear water. No jellies in sight.Tico, hiding from the sun, and looking very much like a dark haired version of the dragon from "The Never Ending Story."This ic Coco, my new roomate. She is another artist working for Bruno. Her specialty is darkroom and fashion photography, but she's also amazing with collage.

Borino Negra - Xylocopa violacea

Quite possibly the next specimen of interest. Unless I can catch a hummingbird moth.

I didn't notice this until later, but you can see two lady-beetles mating to the right of Borino Negra.

Mi Hermano!

Bale (ok), I know this isn't about Mallorca, but I miss my little brother. These images are old, from Camp Pemi 2005. He's the cutest 15 year old that could drop kick you in a flash. Congrats to Yoda for his awards in karate and music this year!

Old Tower and Cave-like dwelling

These 4 images are from a quick excursion - just a 10 minute hike from my apartment. The tower is a great place to watch sunset because you can see all the way to the Mediterranean...that is if you can brave the rickety planks of wood, "stairs", leading up to the top.



The cave-like structure made a really neat place to make photos...but once again, you don't want someone standing on the roof when your inside seeing as the ends have already caved in. My friend Kevin was doing just this when I took the self portrait, luckily none of the flying rocks got me. On to live another beautiful day in Valldemossa.

TICO

I have a new love. His name is Tico. He belongs to Aina (below), a good friend and manager of the Son Moragues. He's no Roscoe, but when Tico looks at me, wags his tail and jumps into my lap, I melt. Maybe it has something to with his amazingly dispraportinate leg height to body width. His breed is actually used to hunt and kill large animals. Although I cant imagine it, I'm told that Tico has taken down some of the Bruno's Lambs already. We try to keep tabs on him, but he always runs off into the wilderness and comes back covered in seed pods.

Cray-Fishing

Son Moragues has a large circular reservoir at the top of a hill. Its hundreds of years old, over 30 meters deep, houses its own micro-ecosystem. Most notable is a species of red crayfish, quite cute, which sift through the debris on the surface for nutriment. They hang out near the surface on the permieter, but who knows how many there are down there. The largest I found measured 7 inches.
Bruno decided one day that we needed to go cray-fishing. I went along to get pictures for my next watercolor. We walked up the long stone staircase with nets and buckets and...raw meat. Once we arrived, Bruno tied the meat to the end of a string and plopped it under the water, almost imediatly he pulled it back up with a huge crayfish on the end of it. Easy.
I got a little too adventurous and started wading into the water, a few steps in showed me how stupid that was as I felt a pinch. I jumped and tried to run out of the water, but my feet slipped on the hundred-year-old algea and i went under fully clothed. I caught myself and quickly searched my pockets for anything electronic, thankfully I was smart enough to put everything in my bag near the edge.
We must have collected over a hundred in a few hours. We stared into our bucket of crayfish bounty, astounded at the sheer number of them all crammed into one space. A space so much tighter than the one they had known before. I dared Bruno to put his hand in the bucket, (just joking really)...but a few minutes went by and without warning he stuck his fist into the middle of the crayfish mass with confidence. He must have held it there for 10 seconds as we all cringed.