day two-hundred-and-seventy-six - philippine eagle

i'm beginning to think the scanner i love may not be so great...

© jem barratt

i can't blame the scanner entirely - i can also blame my photoshop-laziness and tiny sketchbook. it doesn't matter. what does matter is that i like this picture a lot.

yay! finally!

wikipedia suggests these guys are also known as 'monkey-eating eagles' but i'm not sure i trust that. they do in fact eat monkeys (and flying lemurs!), but the name just seems too much. actually the very idea that a bird can eat a monkey is too much.

but that's not even the best thing about these birds. they are critically endangered... and how cool is that!? no, seriously though, because of their conservation status you can be jailed for up to twelve years if you kill and/or eat one. awesome. go the philippines!

and don't be amazed by their penchant for eating flying lemurs - it may seem like they fly to madagascar just for a feed, but no, the 'lemurs' they eat are not lemurs at all. only nominally. and actually they can't fly either... but that is a story i have ruined for another day

in the meantime admire this badass eagle, and wish for some more devious 'lemurs' to 'fly' its way and keep the species alive.

xj

day two-hundred-and-seventy - harpy eagle

ah the harpy eagle. so noble. so grand. so ferocious.

yes?

© jem barratt

and so harpy to meet you.

next year's challenge will be 'drawing 365 things when too tired to draw'. catchy hey?

oh yeah, young harpy eagles do actually look this ridiculous. see? i sure am asking you a lot of questions tonight. (aren't i?)

i don't have much else to say. it's a stupidly bad drawing of a stupidly hilarious bird. if i'd drawn the mature harpy it would have been far too classy, what with their leg stripes and sleekness. they also have a mighty fine scientific name - harpia harpyja - which i am going to count as one of those double scientific names i so dearly love... at least phonetically

hmmm
xj

day eighty-nine - golden eagle

guess who's running out of time again? the earth. TWIST!

oh and also me...

© jem barratt

this eagle is stressing me out. he looks ok, but i tend to feel disappointed when my sketches don't look exactly like the photos i draw from. to which i am told "THIS is a drawing, THAT is a photo". yeah yeah, thanks mantis...

however, today i drew from the most amazing photography ever: bird by andrew zuckerman. so my level of disappointment is higher than usual. but also i'm so happy just looking at birds so it balances out. seriously buy that book NOW (or at the very least look at the website) because you've never seen photos so clear and detailed and breathtaking.

unless you've seen it already, in which case touche.
xj