Guest post by Kir Talmage, Outreach and IT Coordinator for the Birds of Vermont Museum. This article also appeared in the Vermont Great Outdoor Magazine.
The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont is out! As you likely know, an Atlas is
a: a bound collection of maps often including
illustrations, informative tables, or textual
matter
b: a bound collection of tables, charts, or plates
(Merriam-Webster)
This meager definition masks the huge intention and effort that goes into the creation and revision of an Atlas. This particular Atlas is the product of a state-wide breeding birds research project that has spanned ten years, brought together some 57,000 observations, and drew on 350 volunteers. It epitomizes a successful citizen science project. The data (observations) were pulled together by Vermont Center for Ecostudies into one beautiful reference book, which was published in April of this year. The completed Atlas—with maps, individual species accounts, discussions of Vermont’s habitat and land use changes, and analyses of the data—has already helped scientists and policy makers decide how best to work and plan for avian conservation. Continue reading “The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont”
The Museum is showing the work of Peter Padua, a 90-year old Middlebury resident and woodcarver. An article by John Flowers (for the Addison Independent last November) paints a picture of a dedicated woodcarver with a passion for natural inspiration and materials and an eagerness for new challenges.
Carvings by Peter Padua on exhibit at the Birds of Vermont Museum in Huntington, Vermont
Sounds a bit like Bob Spear don’t you think? These life-long carvers have followed similar paths at times too, brightening many homes and outlooks through their talent and efforts.
Padua was a New Jersey high school senior in wood shop class when he felt moved by a photograph of a deer to try his hand at carving its image. His instructor encouraged Padua’s interest. After a few months of careful work, he produced his first piece: a small, expressive deer.
Padua’s future lay in work as an engineering draftsman, but he made time during lunch breaks and off hours to add to his growing collection of fish, bears, Christmas holiday ornaments for his three children, and birds, including representations of all of the state birds.
Padua’s workshop occupies a portion of his basement where his tools suggest an evolution of technique, style, and technology over the years. Basswood is his medium of choice. Padua officially retired twenty-five years ago, yet allows very few days to go by without spending time on or with his carvings. He is very excited about sharing his work with the Birds of Vermont Museum’s visitors and we are delighted to bring it to you. Please come and enjoy!
Guest post by Kari Jo Spear, Photographer, Novelist, and Daughter of Bob Spear
“Take a shot in that direction.” My father pointed down toward the brook through some hemlock trees. “Good ruffed grouse territory.”
“Okay,” I said. My job was to take an interesting photo. So I crouched down, trying to get into ruffed grouse mode, going for an eye level perspective. If I was a grouse, I’d lay my eggs right under the trees. Of course, I wasn’t a grouse, and this was another of my father’s crazy attempts to get me into his “carve all the birds in Vermont” project. He thought it would be helpful to have a plastic sleeve hanging from each display case with some facts about the bird and a photo of its nesting habitat. I thought all the leaves and flowers and stuff he was putting in the cases would be enough to clue people in, but he wanted photos, too. Wouldn’t it be nice if I took them?
Well, I liked taking photos, and my father’s fancy Nikon with interchangeable lenses was pretty cool. But nesting habitat was not exactly an exciting subject to photograph. We’d been hiking for hours, and I’d been dutifully taking shots of deciduous trees, evergreens, moss, and even dead stumps. That part wasn’t really so bad. The real problem was that habitat shots had to be taken in the spring when the birds were nesting. The birds needed to take advantage of insects, who were also doing their multiplying thing. Right now, every black fly in Huntington was taking advantage of their favorite food source—me. They didn’t care about my artistic endeavor, they didn’t care that I reeked of insect repellant, and they didn’t care that I was allergic to them. My eyes were going to be puffed shut tomorrow, I knew it.
I am a grouse, I thought. I snapped two more shots down toward the brook, even climbing into the brush to get a nice, curving limb to frame the top.
“Okay,” my father said. “Now I want to go to a farm up the road. There’s a pair of cliff swallows building under the eaves of the barn. We can get barn swallow habitat inside. And all the apple trees are in bloom. They’re real pretty, and they’d be good blue bird habitat.”
Anything to get away from the buggy brook. I swatted my way out of the woods—flies never seemed to bother my father—and scratched my way up the road to an old farm that looked as thought it had been there since the glaciers moved out. I liked the way the buildings nestled into the hillside. Sure enough, there was a small colony of cliff swallows building their funny little jug-like nests under the eaves. I didn’t even ask how my father had known they were there. While he chatted with the farmer, I photographed the eaves, then some rafters inside where some barn swallows were busy irritating the cows, and then I wandered around the apple trees in full bloom and thought about how nice a big bee sting would look right between my puffy eyes. Maybe some poison ivy to set it off. Then I tripped over a branch buried in the new spring grass and landed in a woodchuck hole, twisting my ankle.
My father got the car and drove me home. Fortunately, I wasn’t bleeding—my father was not good with blood—and the camera was okay, so there was no harm done. “An old war horse,” my father said, seeing me looking at it on the seat between us.
I didn’t think he was referring to me. A young warhorse, maybe.
“You may as well keep it,” he added.
“Until next weekend?” I asked, wondering if my ankle would be up to more traipsing around.
He kind of shrugged. “Till whenever. If I need it for something, you can bring it back.”
“Oh,” I said, it slowly sinking in that he’d just given me a really nice camera. On a kind of permanent borrow.
“Might as well take the lenses, too.” I noticed that they were in the back seat. A 300mm lens and a wide angle.
“Thanks,” I said, meaning it.
“It’s a good camera,” he said. And that was that. Then he added, “But we need to get the film developed right away.”
“What’s the rush?”
“Montpelier.”
Right, I thought. The state capital.
“Library,” he added.
“You’re going to carve books next?” I’d believe anything.
He shot me a look. “No. Going to have the carvings there next week.”
“What?”
“There’s an art gallery upstairs in the library,” he said patiently. We’re going to have a big opening. Newspapers will be there.”
I looked at him, wondering how he’d known how to set up something like this. He’d probably enlisted Gale. He didn’t even look nervous. I’d be frantic.
“We’ve got to start getting people interested in the project, you know,” he went on. “Need to find someplace to house them.”
At the rate he was carving, he wasn’t going to have room to breathe in the shop much longer.
“There’ll be a reception. With food.” He looked at me hopefully.
“Of course I’ll be there,” I said. And not just for the food.
“Good,” he said. And then he smiled, just a little. “It’s upstairs. Your ankle will be better by next weekend, right?”
Of course it would be. Who wouldn’t want to get all hot and sweaty lugging bird cases to an upstairs gallery? I heaved a sigh. I’d never figure out how he managed to talk me into getting deeper and deeper in this project of his.
The next morning, I limped into school with my eyes puffed mostly shut, my arms and legs sunburned and dotted with red spots, and my left ankle wrapped up.
“What happened to you?” my homeroom teacher asked. All around us were kids with honorable injuries, acquired by heroically sliding into home plate or after bursting through a finish line. Everyone turned to me, waiting to hear my glorious tale.
I dropped into my desk with a sigh. “Wood chuck hole.”
Everyone’s eyebrows went up.
I nodded wisely like this was a big deal. Lowering my voice, I said, “Okay. Let me tell you guys about… habitat shots.”
Author’s Note: Visitors to the museum will notice that there are no photographs hanging from any of the cases. My father finally realized, as someone had tried to tell him, that people would get the idea where the birds nested from all the leaves and flowers and stuff in the cases. The habitat shot phase passed quickly, but to this day if I take a photo with no apparent subject, my father will look at it, smile a little, and say, “Looks like a habitat shot to me.”
And I still have the camera, tucked away somewhere safe. Permanent borrow: thirty-five years and counting.
Kari Jo and Bob Spear, examining “Habitat Shots” 1981, Photographer unknown
Kari Jo Spear‘s young adult, urban fantasy novels, Under the Willow, and Silent One, are available at Phoenix Books (in Essex and Burlington, Vermont), and on-line at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Do you do birds? The Birds of Vermont Museum and the Vermont Center for Ecostudies are collaborating on an exhibit for this year at the Birds of Vermont Museum. We are celebrating the VCE’s updated Breeding Birds of Vermont atlas and its release as a printed book (see more at http://www.vtecostudies.org/vbba/). This atlas is a gigantic citizen-science project and the result of hundreds of volunteers and thousands of hours of birding observations and data analysis.
We seek art to complement the data-rich maps and species descriptions. The exhibit will run from May 1 through October 31.
The birds we’re looking for are these:
American Kestrel
Bank Swallow
Blackpoll Warbler
Merlin
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Tufted Titmouse
Whip-poor-will
The art we seek is ready to hang, and is at least 10” x 10” (up to say, 3’x3’). We’re happy to consider sculptures (especially if it fits on a small wall-mounted mantle-style shelf or can be hung on a wall). We are hoping for a diversity of media, and we’re happy to carry some prints and cards of yours in our gift shop as well for the season. The original work can be for sale or not, at your discretion.
Are you interested? Do you have something you’d like to exhibit with us? Do you want to check out our exhibit space? Call or email us, tell us about it, and send us an image (.jpg preferred) by Friday, April 5. We’ll be choosing up to 15 works of art for this exhibit. We’ll need to hang the artwork by the first weekend in May. You can reach us (Erin, Kirsten, and Allison) at (802) 434-2167 and museum@birdsofvermont.org.
The Museum opened its doors this May 1st with 501 birds! An incredible milestone, but of course Bob and the staff have plans for still more. But have we ever mentioned—in addition to the birds—how many carved eggsthere are? So many of our bird displays are complete with parents, nest, habitat, and eggs, that it seems worth some mention. After all, which came first? Continue reading “Eggs: It All Starts Here—Or Does It?”
We’re pleased to extend Familiar Ground, Lori Hinrichsen’s art exhibit, through the July 4th weekend! If you haven’t seen it, now is your chance! Lori has also graciously extended a very generous offer: 20% of all sales benefit the museum. Pick up some fantastic art for you home or office. And thank you, Lori!
Welcome to our May-June 2011 exhibiting artist: Lori Hinrichsen. Her show, “Familiar Ground: monotypes, intaglios and photography inspired by nature”, opened at the Museum May 1st, with the opening day of our 2011 season.
"Between Earth and Sky", intaglio by Lori Hinrichsen, in postcard announcing show
Lori grew up in Iowa and attended the University of Kansas, graduating with a degree in Theatre, Film and Video. Lori spent several years exploring the US, living and growing her art from California to Vermont. This included being a resident artist in Mendocino, at the Vermont Studio Center, and at the Virginia center for Creative Artists. She first joined the Museum community last fall as a judge for the 2010 Annual Youth Art Contest.
Lori has a studio at Shelburne Pond Studios, where she works with printmaking, painting, fabric, and ink. She writes:
Much of my time is spent exploring and connecting with the land and the sky, from meandering paths along the rugged coastline, to breathing in the intoxicating smells of evergreens and fresh rain, to the star-filled desert skies that touch the earth. I feel a deep reverence for the ordinary, for the sensual ecstasy as each season unfolds. My work is in response to this intimate awareness and observation of nature which reflects the moment, engaging the present.
Come by and view her art and photography any day from now through the end of June. We are open from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Free with admission to the museum ($6 for adults, discounts for children, seniors, and members).
Laura Waterhouse, winter intern, at the Loon carving
The Museum was most fortunate to be the temporary workplace this winter of Laura Waterhouse, an American citizen born and raised in New Zealand, as she completed an internship program here during December, January, and February.
While interning at the Museum, Laura was engaged in both daily operations and research projects. From feeding birds and shoveling snow to researching and compiling regional museum data, updating signage for the endangered species exhibit, and developing materials for educational activities offered at the Museum, Laura covered a multitude of topics and tasks. Two very tangible and informative projects Laura completed were adding text and graphics to a comparative activity about birds’ feet and an origami mobile depicting bird migration. Laura met every assignment with clear purpose and focus and demonstrated great creativity and style with her independent projects. Continue reading “Laura Waterhouse: Winter Intern”
The First (and possibly Annual) Community Art Show is open! Members, Volunteers, Interns and Staff display their artworks at the museum. Drop by and admire our local talent.
The show is open with the Museum: Daily 10 am – 4 pm until October 31st.
If you are a member or volunteer and would like to display a piece, please give us a ring (802 434-2167) or an email (museum@birdsofvermont.org). We still have some space.
The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont is out! As you likely know, an Atlas is
