Chirping Birds in February is our blog topic today as we kick-off the new month!

Welcome February!  Towards the end of this month will be anticipating the milestone of having blogged daily for my entire first year since launching AnchoredScraps.com – on February 26th!  The month includes Leap Year Day with us enjoying an extra day this month.   Now about the birds …

Chirping Birds in February

Tomorrow will bring with it a day named all for a groundhog, but for today I wanted to share how much I am looking forward to (hopefully) later this month begin hearing winter birds beckoning Spring to hurry up.  In a ten year plus old article in National Geographic News it was nice to read from February 2005 :  “Mitchell said the singing of the winter-resident birds is among the first signs that spring is around the corner.  Birders begin to report the sounds in the middle weeks of February.”

“To a Young Bird Artist: Letters from Louis Agassiz Fuertes to George Miksch Sutton”

It was rewarding to learn there is the 2002 book “To a Young Bird Artist: Letters from Louis Agassiz Fuertes to George Miksch Sutton”.  My interest with today’s blog post was to see if there were any published letters between people who love to bird watch and this looks to be a book I’ve got to see if my library has available.  Personally I know at least one of the email blog subscribers to AnchoredScraps.com is a birding enthusiast and I cannot wait to find out if he has already read this book!

At Goodreads the About the Author included: “George Miksch Sutton (1898 – 1982) was an American ornithologist and bird artist.”  And described the book with 4.67 stars out of 5 with –

“– Words of wisdom from the “father of modern bird art”
— Of interest to birders, nature-lovers, and wildlife artists
— A birding classic brought back in print.  These collected letters were written by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, one of the country’s most well-known bird artists, to ornithologist and bird illustrator George Miksch Sutton when Sutton was still a boy struggling to learn the art of bird painting. Written between 1915 and 1927, the letters are filled with Fuertes’ observations of bird behavior, descriptions of his bird study and painting techniques, and advice on how to paint lifelike avian images and make one’s way in the rapidly changing birding world — all at a time when birding was becoming less an exclusive activity for scientists and more a popular hobby for the general public.“

Today I have not included any bird stamps but will in later blog posts this month. 

“I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.”
– Charles Lindbergh

Wishing you a joyous week ahead and see if you aren’t on the lookout this month to hear any singing of winter birds – be sure to pause and enjoy if you do!  They will definitely be getting a mention in my snail mail letters this week and perhaps in yours too?

 Anchors Aweigh,  

Helen

Attribution & Thank you to the following who are referenced today —

Excerpt from Winter Birds Begin Singing Their Rites of Spring February 16, 2005 by John Roach, National Geographic News

Cover image shown above and excerpt from  To a Young Bird Artist: Letters from Louis Agassiz Fuertes to George Miksch Sutton by George Miksch Sutton (Commentary) as shown at goodreads.com