Onyx

wildlife and fantasy art!! elsewhere

[onyxcyon]

Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)

the broken-wing display is one of my favorite examples of innate behaviors!! many bird families have evolved this trait independently, but killdeers are so iconic for it

per usual the original guy for fun

(working through redrawing all the birds in an old book I made!)

[camelidae]

That’s all folks! Junicorn goes out with a whimsical whinny~ If you’ve enjoyed my unicorn illustrations, they are all for sale in my shop! Go grab yourself a little pony of your very own if you like, but be warned, they are all incredibly high maintenance.

For international shipping, contact me at [email protected]

[bigskycastle]

barn owl

[fruitpigeons]

Every trilling magpie says your name...

[pilferedinstagram]

[onyxcyon]

(jackalope) not yours to bear

sketch to relearn how to use screenless tablet but in the middle of all that forgot to change my canvas dimensions so he is like two pixels big

[onyxcyon]

stalemate

graphite on paper for a philosophy class way back in 2022

[onyxcyon]

this art is four years old and a little scuffed but rewatching mob psycho rn and lost my stylus so it’s all I’ve got!

hopefully will be able to get back to birds by summerr

[onyxcyon]

let’s be buoyant with mama

[solsoma]

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕷𝖆𝖘𝖙 𝕱𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖊𝖗

[onyxcyon]

do you like his nest

[murrksss]

more herons

[onyxcyon]

please speak nothing about the fate of this guy I’ve got a cool 550 hours of campaign to catch up on

[onyxcyon]

these sketches are so rough and like three years old now but so tempted to dig up the files and finish one I miss severance

[onyxcyon]

A bit different but while I’ve been too busy for art I thought I might share some other work! I’ve been training in specimen taxidermy for a little while now and am working toward more independence — this is my first bird completed entirely solo :D (also threw in some old sketches for good measure)

This American Kestrel was salvaged from a local airport after being struck by a plane. Unfortunately airports provide nice open spaces with high visibility, and this particular runway is bordered by some great fields. Raptors love to hunt in these areas, and this guy was no exception! He was doing extremely well, great body condition and a belly full of grasshoppers—he even had a grasshopper in his beak, fresh from the hunt. Looking at the ossification of his skull and month of death he was likely about 8 months old. He also had some fun asymmetry going on with his R6 rectrices.

We aren’t able to put together a full story for every bird that comes in so I was really happy with how much I was able to learn about this guy and his life!

[onyxcyon]

Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)

the broken-wing display is one of my favorite examples of innate behaviors!! many bird families have evolved this trait independently, but killdeers are so iconic for it

per usual the original guy for fun

(working through redrawing all the birds in an old book I made!)

[onyxcyon]

also still figuring out tumblr conventions and how stuff works here but I wanted to say thank you for all of the love on this post and the many stories in the tags!! it's been such a joy reading about everyone's different personal experiences with these guys and I'm so happy the piece really connected with some people :D

[onyxcyon]

Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius)

pretty little guys!! also very amused by the older drawing (below cut) and the singular crumb I opted to give him for no particular reason