Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 44

Great Blue Heron by the deck watercolor by Meera Rao

This Great Blue Heron Ardea  herodias is in our yard almost everyday! It is either busy fishing by the waters edge or staying in shade by the bushes grooming or ‘meditating.’  Scanning for the heron whenever we come out the back door is a habit now as we don’t want it to get spooked by us - though these days it accepts our presence in the yard :) This particular day it sat nonchalantly very close to the deck. 

Sketching the Pandemic Year 2020 Week 44  October 25-31 

Pictured on the facing page in the Smithsonian Engagement Calendar 2020 is ‘Xenacanthus, a freshwater spiny shark that lived in rivers and ponds during the Permian Period, 294-290 million years ago, preying on fishes, reptiles, amphibians and perhaps even large land carnivores that ventured close to the water.’ This Xenacanthus skull cast is on display with fossils of other aquatic creatures in the Hall of Fossils- Deep Time at the National Museum of Natural History.