Nature Note: A Naturalist's Travels Through Nature

For thousands of years, human beings have been inspired and encouraged to create artwork that celebrates the diversity of the natural world. From early cave paintings of big game animals like mammoths and bison to the works of famous painters like John James Audubon and Louis Agassiz Fuertes, people have found countless ways to appreciate wildlife. My inspiration comes from the rustic wood carvings of ducks, geese, and other birds made by market hunters in the 1800s. The simplicity of their design combined with their rustic paint jobs and regional differences make them an interesting medium to look at. I've worked on woodcarvings of birds on and off for several years now and wanted to share some of my creations as well as the creative process behind them as well. Drawing from the decoys of yore, some of my first creations mirror the patterns of waterfowl and shorebird decoys represented along the Eastern shores of the United States. Carving decoys for hunting and shooting, eve...

As most of you who read regularly can tell, I like to carve wood into folksy likenesses of birds. Considering 90% of my posts consist of birds, birding, bitching about birding, and so forth, this isn't much of a change of pace. However, I'm here to give a summary of how I came to be interested in wood carving and what I've created so far. It started when I was young and had bought one of my first books entitled Duck Hunting by Dick Sternberg and Jeff Simpson. While I've always had an on and off interest in waterfowling, I never really have had the opportunity to go and while I would like to at some point, I am more content to read up on the history and learn about regional decoy styles. The page that caught my eye was the decoy page and ever since, I've had a fascination with the bird in a wooden form. One of my earliest posts on here was about the critically endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper ( Eurynorhynchus pygmeus ) and how I'd made some folksy looking deco...