Gratitude 21

Today, Gentle Reader, I am going to express thanks to the Great Maker Of Birds And All Other Lovely Things (GMOBAAOLT) for a particularly unique family of birds known as the Cotingas.  They are a group of passerine, or song, birds that live in Mexico, Central and South America.  Some are incredibly lovely, others kind of plain and some are downright bizarre:

such as the Umbrella Bird



and the Three Wattled Bell Bird





I have not painted either of these birds because they lack colour although their forms are, to say the least, intriguing.  I have never seen an umbrella bird live.  I did see a bell bird during my first visit to Costa Rica twenty-three years ago.  And I have heard them.  They sound like a hammer hitting a piece of metal with a bell-like clarity and they can be heard for miles!

Here are two of the beauties of this family that I have painted.

On second thought, after trying to copy and paste ten distinct images with the same warning that they could endanger my computer and webpage, I will just give you the link and you can feast your own eyes.  I will show you my paintings of these birds, however.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=lovely+cotinga+images&biw=1518&bih=724&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiajsLj06LSAhVK62MKHbd_CHkQsAQIGQ#imgrc=U1h_DWZWFSdeJM:

These are Guianan Cocks of the Rock.  They live in Venezuela, Colombia, and of course, Guyana.

And here are my lovely cotingas

What particularly intrigues me about these birds is how little known they are outside of ornithology and other bird geek circles.  I am not just content to paint and draw pretty little birdies like blue jays and goldfinches and maybe an exotic parrot.  I want to go for the unusual, the arcane, the weird and the little known.  With birds and with every other facet of life.  There is so much beautiful mystery that surrounds and that fills us and we generally live in a state of dysphoric ignorance of the wonder of it all.

For me, these and the other birds I like to paint and draw are symbols of my journey, my pilgrimage into the beautiful unknown.