Embroidered shirts of the '70s
These are pictures of some of the embroidered shirts I did in the early to mid 1970's for friends and family.
This is a Great Horned Owl swooping down on a field mouse. It is on the back of a workshirt I did for Roland Risser.
A California Magpie. I saw these in the Carmel Valley.
This shows the response of a Kangaroo Mouse when attacked by a rattlesnake. If you have never seen even a house mouse jump in the air you have really missed some unusual animal behavior.
This is just a little Ruby Throated Hummingbird. It is on a shirt covered in California wildflowers I made for my botany teacher, Pete Atsatt.
I first saw hummingbirds in Alabama where they were always flying if you could see them. Here in California we have quite a few different types and you can actually see them sit on a branch. It must be because it is warm out here.
I was on a camping trip in Escondido one Spring and was attacked by an angry mother hummer. I didn't realize until too late that I had come upon her nest. The nest was only about as big around as a quarter and the eggs were like fat rice grains. Amazing. I got first hand experience with the reason for the ruby throat. The coloring is like an oil slick - an optical illusion which only shows when the bird is dive bombing you! It is interesting how large a very small bird can seem when it is flying right at your face! I escaped unscathed but I had alot more respect for small birds after that.
One of the faculty in the UCI Ecology department (that was my major at the time) studied hummingbirds and she had a juvenile one in her lab. It must have had it's wings clipped or maybe was injured because it wasn't in a cage and it didn't fly away. When I walked into the lab it was sitting in absorbent cotton in the top of an Erlenmeyer flask on top of a lab stool - in the middle of the lab floor. I asked the grad student what was going on and she told me not to get too close to it. I thought she was trying to protect the bird and found out that she was protecting me - this very little sweet looking bird raised it's tail and shot a stream of liquid poo about six feet from the stool! I would never have believed it. I know that birds need to keep their nests clean but I wasn't aware that this was one way.
This is a California Coyote with her pup.
This is a Great Horned Owl swooping down on a field mouse. It is on the back of a workshirt I did for Roland Risser.
A California Magpie. I saw these in the Carmel Valley.
This shows the response of a Kangaroo Mouse when attacked by a rattlesnake. If you have never seen even a house mouse jump in the air you have really missed some unusual animal behavior.
This is just a little Ruby Throated Hummingbird. It is on a shirt covered in California wildflowers I made for my botany teacher, Pete Atsatt.
I first saw hummingbirds in Alabama where they were always flying if you could see them. Here in California we have quite a few different types and you can actually see them sit on a branch. It must be because it is warm out here.
I was on a camping trip in Escondido one Spring and was attacked by an angry mother hummer. I didn't realize until too late that I had come upon her nest. The nest was only about as big around as a quarter and the eggs were like fat rice grains. Amazing. I got first hand experience with the reason for the ruby throat. The coloring is like an oil slick - an optical illusion which only shows when the bird is dive bombing you! It is interesting how large a very small bird can seem when it is flying right at your face! I escaped unscathed but I had alot more respect for small birds after that.
One of the faculty in the UCI Ecology department (that was my major at the time) studied hummingbirds and she had a juvenile one in her lab. It must have had it's wings clipped or maybe was injured because it wasn't in a cage and it didn't fly away. When I walked into the lab it was sitting in absorbent cotton in the top of an Erlenmeyer flask on top of a lab stool - in the middle of the lab floor. I asked the grad student what was going on and she told me not to get too close to it. I thought she was trying to protect the bird and found out that she was protecting me - this very little sweet looking bird raised it's tail and shot a stream of liquid poo about six feet from the stool! I would never have believed it. I know that birds need to keep their nests clean but I wasn't aware that this was one way.
This is a California Coyote with her pup.
posted by Susan Bertram at 12/06/2005
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