Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

It is getting cooler in Prescott and ducks are flying in from the Arctic area (too cold with no food there!)    So Peter and I went birding to see how many ducks and what kinds were arriving.   Today we saw Mallards, Shovelers, Canvasbacks, Ring - Necked Ducks, Lesser Scaups, American Wigeons, Ruddy Ducks, Buffleheads and one Green - winged Teal.   Then I spotted the eye candy!   Three Wood Ducks swimming in a man-made waterfall area at the entrance to a housing development – a place one would not expect to find them since they like secluded areas like wooded swamps.   The one male and two females caused us to stop the car, get our binoculars and just stand there looking!   The colors on the females were blended so that the blues slid into the greens and browns and then the blue green on their heads caught the sunlight.   It was such a rich color that I just wanted to touch. There was a delicate white pattern around their eyes and an elegant shape to their heads. The male coloring is

It seems that man has always wanted to express himself with drawings.   Early man often used stones to peck on rocks as well as paint to leave his messages.   He recorded ceremonies, hunts, dreams, maps, animals and daily life.   Just to clarify the terms: ‘pictograph’ is anything depicted on a stone surface – carved, pecked or painted. ‘Petroglyph’ is the technical word for anything carved or pecked.   I’ve always been fascinated by pictographs.  And I take photographs of the images whenever I am fortunate to find them. Hopi, Pueblo, Paiute Navajo and Anasazi have left drawings on rocks all over the Southwest.     It is great to live in this area of pictorial wealth!   I just came across William Michael Stokes and William Lee Stokes book “Messages on Stone – Selections of Native Western Rock Art “.   The images are divided into types – Apparel and Adornment, Birds, The Corn Maidens, Design, etc.   Great little book for kids and adults! It is pretty easy to find a real pictograph, matc

Often when I sit at my workspace I look out the window and see several big black ravens (each about 24-25” long) swooping between the tall pine trees.   I feel like I’m in the middle of a sci-fi movie by Stephen King or Alfred Hitchcock! Sometimes the Ravens huddle in trees or on the ground.   Other times they will be alone or with their mate.  Today there were 15 of them (an unkindness of Ravens) foraging at the corner where our street intersects another.     Evenings bring the ‘raven patrol’ where they fly and land in their favorite trees.   Quite a site!   Once in a while, one will come to the feeder and grab a peanut! They communicate with each other using an amazing variety of calls that range from a low gurgling croak to harsh grating sounds and shrill alarm calls that can be heard a mile away.  The Common Raven has a very thick bill, shaggy throat and a wedge-shaped tail.   This member of the crow family is incredibly aerobatic, tumbling and rolling, in mid air.   Many scienti