The notch in a Peregrine Falcon's beak...

From reading about birds over the years, I knew falcons had a notch in their beaks called a "tomial tooth" that other raptors did not have, but I had never looked at it closely until this autumn...

The notch in a falcon's beak is called the tomial tooth, and it's an adaptation suited to their hunting style.

Here you can see how the top notch (the tomial tooth) and the bottom notch fit together. The powerful beak and shape of the notch work together to allow falcons to bite through the cervical vertebrae and sever the spinal cord of their prey with ease (with Peregrine Falcons, the prey is primarily birds).

The Tomial Tooth is an adaptation unique to falcons. The only other bird that has a tomial tooth is the shrike (click here to learn more about shrikes).

...an entry from my sketchbook on the Peregrine Falcon's tomial tooth.

If you want to accurately represent a falcon in a painting or drawing, it's important to pay attention to the shape of its beak. I wanted to spend a little time studying its unique shape, so I sketched it out a few times.

Beak Bit

Also specific to the falcons is the shape of their wings. Falcons get their name from the Latin word "falco" or "falx," which means "sickle" or "scimitar-shaped" and refers to the shape of their wings, which are long and narrow and pointed at the end, similar in shape to a sickle.

Basic Raptor Silhouettes

...another sketchbook entry. By looking at the silhouette of a falcon, you can see the sickle shape of the wings and their pointed tips. When I first started looking up at the sky to identify raptors by silhouette, it took me a while to figure out the basic forms. After a while, it became clear...the shape of the tail feathers helped me the most. Accipiters (Cooper's Hawks, Sharp-shinned hawks) longer and thinner...and Buteos (Red-tailed Hawks, Red-shouldere Hawks) shorter and wider. Falcons are distinct...fast and sleek with a very thin tail.

Additionally, falcons do not have well-defined supraorbital ridges like hawks and eagles (click here for a few posts that describe the supraorbital ridge--the bony ridge above the eye that helps to cut the sun's glare). Even though falcons have a much less defined bony ridge, they all have a dark stripe under their eye (called a malar stripe), which cuts the sun's glare to help them hunt.

p.s. The close-up shots of the Peregrine Falcon came from the photo-shoot at RAPTOR, Inc. back in autumn. For more close-ups of the beautiful raptors Matty and I photographed that day, click here. As always, artists can feel free to use these photos as reference shots. It's so hard to get close-up references of falcons in the wild. Going to a RAPTOR, Inc. event lets you study the birds and learn their subtleties. I would never have been able to study the notch in the beak if I had not seen this bird up close.

Close-up photos of an American Bald Eagle...great references for artists

If you're a bird artist, you're probably always looking for ways to study birds up close, but it's hard to sneak up on an American Bald Eagle in the wild, so if you're an artist looking for close-up reference images of an American Bald Eagle, feel free to use these.

This American Bald Eagle was part of an education program from Back to the Wild, a volunteer, non-profit wildlife rehabilitation and nature education center located in northwest Ohio. I was at the Midwest Birding Symposium in Lakeside, Ohio when I saw their tent set up in the vendor area. Just like RAPTOR, Inc. (from my previous posts), Back to the Wild's primary mission is to rehabilitate and release injured, orphaned and displaced wildlife back to the wild...

...a closeup of an American Bald Eagle. Nothing beats that profile...

I had just come out of a lecture and didn't have my big camera with me, so I took these photos with my little Panasonic LUMIX DMC-257. For being such a small camera, it has a nice little zoom. I always regret not taking my Nikon with me wherever I go, but I had no idea these gorgeous birds would be working that day.

...another closeup. It's almost the same shot, but the there is a subtle shift in his head tilt. The down-tilted angle changes the mood captured in the image, creating a more aggressive feel. It all centers around the line of his brow. This photo can help artists see how a tiny shift in the angle of the eye creates a not-so subtle shift in the mood...

A quick bit about the boney ridge above the eagle's eye...

The fierce glare of an eagle is all because of the oversized supraorbital ridge that makes up the eagle's brow. This boney ridge makes the bird look tough, formidable, and no-nonsense, but really the supraorbital ridge is only there to block the sun and eliminate its glare so the bird has an easier time hunting. As humans, we interpret the look as a scowl that denotes power and strength, because in our faces, emotions can be deciphered from a shifting brow—a downward slanted brow indicates concentration, anger, or attack. The eagle can not change the position of the supraorbital ridge, and he doesn't have an eyebrow to move around freely, but as artists, we can shift the position of the head to make the slant of the supraorbital ridge a bit deeper, which then creates mood and emotion for the viewer. (Click here for previous posts on the supraorbital ridge.)

...this angle is more contemplative. We equate this gaze as far reaching and noble. The supraorbital ridge is exactly the same, but we perceive the angle of the brow and chin as a mood shift. It's strange how we can pin human characteristics to a bird to create a mood in art, but it's not surprising...

...it also explains why so many sports teams choose hawks and eagles as their namesakes instead of owls and ospreys. How many times have you heard someone shout, "Go Owls!" The owl is every bit as powerful a hunter and can inflict just as much damage as an eagle or hawk, but because it lacks the oversized supraorbital ridge, it carries a different "expression" on its face. Without the scowl, aggression does not register in the viewer and no fight-or-flight adrenalin is produced either. Owls are considered "wise" and hawks "tough," and the poor ospreys, even though they can rip flesh apart with the best of them, they seem to have a perpetually "surprised" look on their faces. "Go Ospreys!" Intellectually, we know what's what, but artistically, emotion can be produced in a glance, and there's nothing we can do about it...

...a full-bodied shot of an American Bald Eagle. This photo is certainly not going to win any awards. Yuck, it's out of focus and people and cars are in the background, but an artist can use it to spark an idea or refer to it for proportion. When I look at this photo, I see an eagle perched on the edge of a nest looking towards its mate approaching with prey...

...artists can get lost in the beautiful and intricate patterns that show in an eagle's wings. Since the wing feathers are so large and pronounced, the pattern is striking.

I always feel sad when I see birds that have been injured so badly they can't heal well enough to live in the wild, but it's nice to know that most of the birds recovered by Back to the Wild are rehabilitated and released and go on to live out their lives in the wild. I also feel like I'm cheating when I photograph these birds. They are tethered and can't fly away, but I know these close-up photos are a great way for artists to study raptors. (Click here for close-up photos of RAPTOR, Inc.'s birds of prey. Artists can also use these photos as references.)

The Osprey at Quick Point Nature Preserve...

Birding Longboat Key, Florida
...continued from the Black-bellied Whistling-Duck post.
If you've been to Quick Point Nature Preserve on Longboat Key, Florida lately, you've probably seen this fellow. He was there every time I visited, usually in this tree or the tree at the far end of the first pond. He was very chatty, and I liked that!

Ospreys always look just a bit surprised to me. It's probably because they lack the heavily pronounced supraorbital ridge above their eyes that hawks and eagles have. The pronounced boney structure tucks the hawks and eagles' eyes into shadow, giving them an intense and fierce look, not the "who me?" look that sometimes pops to mind when I look at an Osprey. (Click here for an older post that explains the supraorbital ridge and how it helps eagles and hawks.)

...and look at those talons! Who needs a supraorbital ridge when you have feet super strong and lethal...and specialized too. All four toes are the same length on an Osprey's foot, and the outer toe is reversible, almost like an opposable thumb, which helps the Osprey grasp fish. In addition, the pads of the Osprey's feet are very scaly and covered in spicules, or spines. These unique adaptations turn the Osprey into a fish hunting machine. Slippery fish rarely wiggle free once an Osprey has latched on, and an Osprey's capture rate of 40 percent (some studies show higher) exceeds the success ratio of other raptors.

"That's what I'm talking about..." says the majestic Osprey. In addition, an Osprey's talons are curved like fish hooks and are rounded, instead of grooved like other raptor's talons. Once more, uniquely adapting them to catching fish for a living.

City Osprey! This Osprey was eating his prey on top of the electric wires lining a fairly busy street that paralleled the ocean. He didn't care about trees and green leaves, he had the gulf sweeping out in front of him, and that's all that mattered...

Sources:

"Birds of Prey: Majestic Masters of the Skies," by Paul D. Frost

"Birds of Lake, Pond, and Marsh: Water and Wetland Birds of Eastern North America," by John Andrew Eastman

Also...John Briggs (Birding in Maine blog) recently posted a detailed entry on Ospreys. You might want to check it out for more info.

...this is a painting I did in December '09. I'm just including it here for reference because it clearly shows the supraorbital ridge above the American Bald Eagle's eye. The shadow cast by the overhanging boney structure is fun to paint...I love the power in that eye!

An American Bald Eagle Study

…remember back on November 7 when I saw two beautiful American Bald Eagles flying over Caesar Creek Lake? I was so happy to see those two birds flying high in the sky so close to my house. Actually, I was beyond happy. I was ecstatic, awestruck…infatuated even, because it was the first time I had ever seen an American Bald Eagle flying in my town. My infatuation goes all the way back to 1967 when I was in the first grade and the bird was put on the endangered species list. At that time, conservation was huge, and we talked about the American Bald Eagle in school all the time. As a first grader, I knew the American Bald Eagle was threatened, even close to extinction--and we would probably NEVER, EVER see one in the wild—EVER! That was my reality, and that desperation was burned into my brain, and an intense love of the bird grew out of how fragile his stay on the planet was. We all knew about the DDT pesticide poisoning and how it had filtered into the lakes and streams, accumulating in the tissues of the fish the eagles ate, and causing the eagles to produce eggshells so thin they would break under the bird’s weight during incubation. It really was a hopeless and scary time, but…that is not the case anymore!! They are back, doing well, and can be regularly found in several places around Cincinnati!

…the Bald Eagle…is there a more intense looking bird? I love the oversized supraorbital ridge (the boney ridge above the eye) that puts a permanent snarl on his face. It’s really there to block the sun and help eliminate sun glare so he has an easier time hunting, but boy, oh boy, does it ever make him (and all hawks) look tough!

...the American Bald Eagle is my mom's favorite bird...this post is for you, mom!

An American Bald Eagle soaring over the water at at Caesar Creek State Park, Nov 7, 2009.

Beak Bit

A timeline of the American Bald Eagle's recovery in Ohio
To check on these dates, I went to my copy of Bruce G. Peterjohn’s, The Birds of Ohio. With such an amazing come-back story, it’s so cool knowing that a bird put on the endangered species list over 40 years ago is now living and breeding in our town!

Because the American Bald Eagle can live up to 30 years in the wild, their numbers remained stable even though the birth rate had dropped to almost zero due to the DDT which had poisoned their food supply in the 40s and 50s; however, as the older birds started to die, they were not replaced, and the American Bald Eagle’s population crashed. By 1979 Ohio was down to 4 or 5 pairs, and they weren’t producing many young. At this point, the Ohio Division of Wildlife stepped in and began managing the few pairs left by monitoring nests, trying to eliminate disturbances around breeding pairs, and transplanting young eagles into the nests of successful parents. These actions and the elimination of DDT in 1972 boosted Ohio’s Bald Eagle population to 12 pairs by 1989. In 1992 Ohio’s breeding population increased to 20 nests, 33 in 1996, and 57 in 1999. By the late 1990s, wintering eagle numbers soard to 100 -150 birds, and in a blog article from Cleveland.com from January 24, 2008, volunteers spotted an amazing 649 eagles during the Ohio Department of Natural Resources mid-winter survey. Of course, since the eagle is a water-loving bird and its diet consists primarily of fish, the largest concentration of eagles in Ohio is around Lake Erie, but as we well know, we have a few down in Cincy too...now!

...here are a few of my photographs of the bird from November 7, 2009...not nearly as commanding as the images made with a paintbrush, but you can at least make out his field marks!

Yes, oh yes...just 30 minutes north of our digs, this beautiful eagle was flying high.

...the Little Miami River is calling your name, bird...right at the bend near the Kings Powder Factory (or maybe that was me...).

...seeing the contrast between the white and black in the sky is beautiful.

...knowing this bird has fought its way back from near extinction is even more beautiful.