I’ve always maintained that feeding stations were for the usual guests — wrens, cardinals, bluejays, woodpeckers.  You know the list.  But I also think that birdfeeders are there for the birds of prey that are attracted by feeding birds.

My oldest daughter’s middle name is Copper — named for an ancient Quaker ancestor and original settler of Philadelphia — so Cooper’s hawks are kind of special.  (My other daughter is Phoebe.)

I was walking through the kitchen and caught a fast diagonal blur past the feeding stations.  A quick glance let me know that they were abandoned.  There on the board fence was the Copper’s hawk.

This was one of the few times that a camera was at hand and I quickly shot a dozen, or so, frames. (Do we still call them that?)  In the photos it’s pretty clear that the hawk nailed a female northern cardinal.  So it goes.  Another adventure at the bird feeder.

This is a classy show and demands classy display.  Last year I designed a portable gallery space with floor covering, bright lights, sales counter and storage.  It is a beautiful booth and I love to use it to show my work.

With that finished I thought I was off the hook for heavy duty building and planning for this year’s event.  That changed when I learned earlier today that I am slated to demonstrate my work at this year’s event.  This is a good thing — a wonderful thing!  I’m a life-long educator and there is no better way for me to talk about my work than to teach folks how it’s done.

For demonstration space I’ve awarded a 10′ x 10′ space adjacent to my booth.  This demonstration areas are well placed and ensure that my booth is well placed.  The challaenge now is to design this space to maximize visibility, teaching potential and to drive sales.

This means I need work space, signage to interpret what I am doing and another person (or two or three) all weekend so that I can serve my customers in both locations.

I’m really looking forward to doing this.

I need some input.  What would you like to see me do?  Build a skin-on-frame bird?  Carve and paint many typical forms?  Begin projects from reference photos and drawings and complete carvings?  Put wood and knives in hands and teach carving?

I have the ability to move the majority of my woodshop to shows.  I developed tools storage and folding benches when I used to build ukuleles on site.

Please share your thoughts!

A handful of new listings. Click on photos to see listings.

Sold

This has been my waterfowl fall and winter.  With some simple coaching from my friendly neighborhood willow bender, Greg Adams I now know where and how to look for the waterfowl that have eluded me.

This morning I visited Indianapolis’ center for birding, Eagle Creek Park.  I took a nice long 90 minute walk around a nice waterfowl filled pocket of water filled with ducks, herons, gulls and mergansers.

It’s been a great week in the 50 Little Bird shop.  I’ve delivered work to some great shows, found some time to bird, caught up on some work and sold quite a few carvings.

My heavy spring schedule has me worried about putting together enough stock. This week I focused on waterfowl.    this week i finally got my hands on a copy of Robert Shaw’s American Bird Decoys.  The book offers a fairly definitive history of decoy carving and decoration and (most importantly) it is filled with gorgeous photos wiht loads of details.  There is no doubt that this book has jump started my desire to carve and paint waterfowl.

I present here this week’s work a double crested cormorant, a snow goose, a sleeping Canada goose and a white pelican.  (My first show, in two weeks, is at Goose Pond where I first saw white pelicans a year ago.)

Amanda Smith, Hamilton County Naturalist, and her staff and volunteers have put together a wonderful group of artwork for this year’s Nature’s Inspirations art show.  I got a peak at the catalog today and can tell you that this show should not be missed.

I will be displaying two pieces, Tail Lashing, Teeth Gnashing Croco-gator and Chippers by the Dozen.  these are two of my favorite works and I am thrilled to be showing them at this show.

Other artists Hamilton County artists of note include Bruce Neckar, Ken Bloomquist and Rodney Reveal.

Nature’s Inspirations
Fine Art show and Sale

February 25 to March 11
Cool Creek Park Nature Center
2000 E. 151st Street
Carmel, Indiana

It goes something like this (With occassional variations)-

• Morse Beach Park – I scope the the lake from north of the beach. Check the trees in and around the park and then check the dam and pool below it.
• Carrigan Crossing (Skipped this morning)- To check out gulls and northern parts of Morse Reservoir.
• Hamilton County Heron Rookery – This new park is coming into its first spring. You cannot go near the nesting area, but there is a nice parking area and observation deck.
• The Phoebe Bridge (My own name.) – This is a bridge with a parking spot near the west end. This is a great place to spot eastern phoebes hawking over the creek. I thought this was my “secret place” but I’ve crossed paths with many that have the same feelings. I’ve yet to run into anyone else out there. I’ll share, it’s at 256th Street and Little Cicero Creek.
• Koteewi Park – This is a prairie area adjacent to a river with woodland borders. You could spend all day birding this huge and diverse park.

A few notes:

• Not much action on Morse Reservoir this morning — a pair of coots, Canada geese and mallards. I heard what might have been a red-winged blackbird in a tree behind me and quickly scanned the upper reaches. I forgot the blackbird when I spotted a young bald eagle eating something held in its talons. I walked, the long way, around the tree to put the sun at my back and got what I thought would be a good shot. I’m disappointed, but finally I’ve seen one of the hometown eagles that it seems everyone else has seen.
• At the heron rookery there were heron on the nests! Again my shots were not up to grade. I’ll return, maybe tomorrow with a tripod.
• Lots of new bird song along white river. Signs of spring are everywhere — frolicking squirrels and downy woodpecker pairs, more and more red-winged blackbirds and the afore mentioned herons on the nest.

Friday, March 2, 6 to 10

Put A Bird On It

artist reception and open studio night

In the Harrison Gallery, Annex, Gallery No. 2 and Hank & Dolly’s – group show featuring work from over 75 artists!  In the City Gallery – new work by Erin Drew.  In the gym – demonstrations by Rock Steady Boxing.  Throughout the building – 24 open artist studios.

I’m pretty pumped about this show.  Over 75 artists exhibiting bird related works including several of mine.  This will be the first showing of “Cardinals are Big in Indiana” my stick-on-frame bird.

Harrison Center for the Arts is located at the corner of Delaware Street and 16th Street in Indianapolis, Indiana.

From yesterday’s post…

Four bucks for a duck..

We’ve begun our adventure finally and our first (eventual) destination is the Sax-Zim Bog Winter Bird Festival in Meadowlands, Minnesota. We had several stops planned for the trip up, the first few were on our first travel day, and involved a few rare bird reports. A couple hadn’t been reported for days, but we were hoping to get lucky.

We struck out on Purple Sandpiper at Port of Indiana, which was incredibly void of gulls, unless they were all metamorphosed into Scaup! So we pressed on for a recently reported Harlequin Duck in Diversey Harbor, close enough to the heart of Chicago that it took just over $4 in tolls to get there! (I know, there’s probably plenty of other means to get there for less, but we were figuring this out as we went) I grumbled a bit about the tolls, the time, and driving into the city when nothing else that day had panned out. I must admit, morale was low, but Clare believed it was worth the effort (and the change), so after a few split second decisions on whether to turn right or left, we arrived. Diversey Harbor appeared to be completely frozen over, and it looked like we were going to be 0 for 3, until we spied a small patch water towards the south end, and I caught sight of what I was fairly certain was a duck!

Read the rest and follow here.  It’s going to be interesting.  I hope that I cross paths with these folks fairly soon.

We’ve been busy answering queries from the 50 Little Bird appearance in the March issue of Country Living with our friends at Homespun.  A few birds have been shipped and we expect to ship a few more before the weekend.

Remember that I will take commissions.  Most commissions cost no more than my regular pieces.  I’m carving almost every day and would love to drop your special bird into the schedule.

In my recent skin-on-frame experiments I utilized sheet steel to fabricate birds’ wings.  I had some extra time Sunday evening and fabricated wings and tail feathers for a red-winged blackbird.

I picked up a plaid wooden croquet ball and used it to mount this bird.

I’m fairly pleased with the results, though these wings are oversized.  There will be few more over the next few weeks.