Sketching maps and watching birds

Sketching maps can be a lot of fun.
Here I’ve drawn a map of the places I’m most active in right now, and that area actually spans through an entire park, over a river and across several fields. I thought it would be fun to note and draw the animal encounters that I often have – mostly birds, but sometimes a squirrel or most recently hares and raccoons. I decided to focus on birds for this map.

I see a heron almost every day at the canal in the park, when the mallards are still asleep and the geese are searching for food on the field. I’ve also included my kingfisher sighting (although that was back in March) – I couldn’t pass the chance to sketch this beautiful bird.

Other birds that I regularly see are redstarts and of course sparrows – they are everywhere and their young are almost grown up now, hopping around and fleeing from my bicycle.

When making such a map it’s a good idea to plan in big areas like the bird portraits and the title first. I use Open Street Maps for copying the rough landmarks, and then add in the sights that I want to feature. I then paint in a few splashes of watercolor to make the trees, meadows and river more readable, and use color for the bird portraits. Additional text is important in a map, I typically add that with a fountain pen.

While this map focuses on animal encounters you could also make a map about plants, or interesting trees, or just the things in nature you pass each day.