Interview with Nina Gormley of the Wendell Gilley Museum

The Wendell Gilley Museum in Southwest Harbor, Maine is the finest of the few museums dedicated to the art of bird carving. Originally begun as a collection of the works of it's namesake, a native of Southwest Harbor and one of the pioneers of American bird carving, the museum has expanded to include the works of other artists and offers workshops taught by their carver-in-residence.

I talked with Nina Gormley, the Executive Director and Curator of the museum, about Wendell Gilley and the world of bird carving.



How did the Wendell Gilley Museum start?

NG: Wendell Gilley’s wife, Addie, collected 110 examples of her husband’s work from 1931-1981. The couple had thought of starting a museum on their own eventually, but realized that they were no longer up to even the 100+ visitors that came to the home/ workshop with no advertising. Happily, many other people felt that a museum should be established to ensure that future generations could enjoy Wendell’s unique cultural legacy.

In 1979, Steven Rockefeller spearheaded efforts to incorporate the Wendell Gilley Museum, set up a board and raise funds to build it. The Museum purchased the Gilley’s collection as the core of its permanent collection. Roc Caivano was chosen as the architect and engaged to design a building that would not only showcase the bird carvings and other art exhibitions, but serve as a model of energy efficiency and environmental awareness.

Most of the crew that built the Museum had worked with Wendell Gilley when he was a plumber. He was well-liked and respected and their workmanship on the building reflects their admiration. The building opened to the public in July of 1981 and the Museum has been welcoming visitors to discover art through nature and vice versa ever since.

What drew Wendell Gilley to start carving birds over other subjects?

NG: He had a passion for bird hunting. His Yankee spirit made him feel badly about using only the meat and tossing the skins, so he took up taxidermy to learn how to “stuff them and save them.” When he went to the Boston Museum of Natural History in 1931 to look at the taxidermy exhibits, he was drawn to a display of miniature bird carvings by Elmer Crowell. When he got home, he whittle out a little mallard drake, enjoyed it and the rest is history. His taxidermy mounts became his models.

Aside from Mr. Gilley, who are some other famous names in the world of bird carving - past and present?

NG: Besides Wendell Gilley’s inspiration, A. Elmer Crowell, the first bird carving pioneers that spring to my mind are Charles “Shang” Wheeler, Lem and Steve Ward, Arnold Melbye, Grainger McKoy, Ernest Muehlmatt, Harold Haertel, and Bruce Burk.

There are so many styles and so many great carvers these days, it’s tough to give a short list, but my favorite contemporary carvers known on the competitive scene are Larry Barth and John T. Sharp and Todd Wohlt. He does not enter competitions, but the Gilley Museum’s Carver-in-Residence, Steven Valleau, is on my short-list for his outstanding, graceful work and his enduring patience with students of all ages.

Do most bird carvers work toward realistic depiction of their subjects or are there different styles as in painting?

NG: There are many different styles. Some carvers, for example, do not even use paint, such as John T. Sharp, whose “interpretive” style depicts birds (and other subjects) in hardwoods such as black walnut with an oil finish. The grain of the wood is integral to the design.

Speaking of such carvers, I neglected to mention John’s mentor and one of the foremost early interpretive style carvers, Maine’s own Charles “Chippy” Greenough Chase. Among the carvers who paint their subjects, some create “smoothies” in which all the detail is painted on, others carve, burn and/or stone in texture to their pieces before painting. Some go for a more “folk art” look, others strive to make the birds look as if they will take off any minute.

Are certain styles more desirable to collectors than others?

NG: If price is a measurement of “desirable,” classic antique decoys still rule the market, some fetching prices in excess of $800,000, but there are collectors for every style – and price range of carvings.

$800,000! What kind of decoy was that? What place to duck decoys have in the history of bird carving?

NG: A black-bellied plover by A. Elmer Crowell went for $830,000; there may have been higher prices since that 2006 sale. Decoys makers turned to decorative carving when conservation laws banned market gunning in 1918 and cut down on the need for working birds.



Because of the decoy connection, are ducks and shorebirds still the most commonly carved birds? Do collectors prefer some species to others?

NG: Ducks and shorebirds, i.e. the birds decoy makers and hunters were most familiar with started out as the most commonly-carved birds and still appear to have an edge, but others, including exotic species are catching up as carvers diversify and the collecting world fills with birders as well as hunters. Collectors tend to favor game birds and good-looking birds. A carver can be sure to sell more loons than vultures.

Not a huge market for vulture sculptures, eh? Makes sense. Are some of these uglier birds gaining any more respect as the ranks of birders, as opposed to hunters, rise? Are there other ramifications from the recent growth of birding?

NG: Perhaps birds that are both rare and “ugly” are gaining respect with the increased interest in birding. I have seen the combination of birders who like to travel, who see something “special,” a quetzal, for example, then look for a carving or commission one to savor the memory.

Back to Wendell Gilley, did he focus on carving the birds he hunted or did he experiment with other species? Did he have a favorite subject?

NG: Wendell’s favorites were the birds he had the most first-hand experience with—those he hunted, and Maine’s ever-present State bird, the black-capped chickadee. If you pick up a Gilley green-winged teal or a ruffed grouse, you almost feel it’s alive; it’s obvious that Wendell handled those, whereas his Adele penguin leaves something to be desired.

What do you see for the future of the Wendell Gilley Museum, and for bird-carving in general?

NG: Wendell Gilley believed that all people have some form of “creative power” that they simply need to find the outlet for. Here at the Museum and elsewhere, more and more people of all ages are finding that bird carving is a great outlet for that power and also a great way to connect with nature. We will do our best here to keep fostering the connection between humans, art and nature.

After you have carved and painted a Blackburnian Warbler you will never fail to recognize a real one in the field. I believe that bird carving and collecting is going to continue to grow and diversify. Whether you carve ornaments for your family or commissions for celebrities, whether you buy $12.00 carved chickadees or $830,000 decoys, there is a place for everyone in the bird carving continuum.

Cool Guy

Leroy L. Jensen is mentioned in Mark Obmascik's The Big Year as the guy who birded through his TV. It's a pretty awesome story, and I'm going to interview him if I can find him. Until then, read about it here.

Jerk Golfer in the News

John Henry "Tripp" Isenhour, a PGA tour golfer, killed a Red-Tailed Hawk by drilling it with a golfball.  

Whatever, dude. I'm not gonna flip out. This isn't one of those animal blogs that is gonna vilify this gent for killing a bird. I swat flies and trap mice. Killing a Red-Tail is a terrible thing to do, but I'm sure "Tripp" is genuine in his remorse...plus it's on the ESPN ticker so everyone who isn't directly related to this guy will forever only know Tripp Isenhour as "that guy who killed that bird."

Whatever, buddy, don't mess with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Also, a word of advice from a legal standpoint: Whether you intended to kill it or not doesn't matter. You intended to hit the balls, which any reasonable person could foresee killing the bird if hit. The only way you can argue that the killing was unintentional is if you didn't see the bird or if you somehow accidentally hit the ball without knowing it. You monster.

Discussion with John of A DC Birding Blog

The White-Crested Elaenia that recently turned up in Texas was the first of its kind to ever be found in the U.S. and inspired a whole lot of excitement among birders who could afford a plane ticket. The situation got me thinking about extralimital birds. How many extralimital birds are actually found by birders? How many birds are missed?

I engaged John of the excellent A DC Birding Blog in a discussion of this topic, for your reading pleasure:

Say 100 White-crested Elaenias are released onto the east coast of the US. After a month, how many of them do you think have been found by birders?

ADCBB: I think it depends on where on the east coast you release them. If you release them near New York City, I would guess 80-90 would be found. In the less developed areas, I could see only 10-20 being found.

I agree that if the birds were released in a heavily birded area they are more likely to be seen than if they were released somewhere more remote, but that still leaves a chicken-and-egg question: Are certain areas heavily birded because they're productive or are those areas productive because they're heavily birded?

ADCBB: For the most part, I think it's the former. Places like Cape May were popular with market gunners who needed to find as many birds as possible long before there was a birding culture around them. I think that urban hotspots develop reputations because there are so many birders to track down every rarity that passes through.

I think I agree. Certain areas are popular because they are places were birds tend to congregate in large numbers, and therefore extralimital birds are more likely. On the other hand, I think a lot more extralimital birds would be found it birders spread out and searched less common areas (gull-filled landfills in the winter, for example). Do you think the Elaenia would have been found if it had landed in a private yard next to the conserved area it was found at?

ADCBB: Probably not, unless the yard belonged to a really sharp birder. Then again, nothing would stop it from wandering into the conserved area where it might be more likely to be seen by a birder.

Sure. Length of stay and movement definitely increases the likelihood of an unusual bird being discovered. Of all the extralimital birds that show up in the U.S., how many do you think are discovered?

ADCBB: I think that most extralimital species are discovered eventually; I'm not sure that most individual birds are since it is easy for individuals to land in an underbirded area.

But aren't most extralimital birds single individuals? Are you saying that species makes a difference?

ADCBB: If you have one extralimital bird that sticks to a particular location for an extended period, then I think you can say with some confidence that it is a single bird. But you don't really know for sure unless you band it or have some other identifying characteristic to separate individuals from each other.

As an example, a few winters ago a Rufous Hummingbird was visiting one of the Smithsonian gardens in D.C. There were actually two birds, but that did not become clear until the one that had been banded was recovered outside a window in Pennsylvania. Without that recovery, it would have appeared that a single individual stayed all winter. Now Rufous Hummingbird is not an extralimital, but I think its example can be applied to some of the single-record extralimital birds. There is speculation that the various Western Reef Heron sightings along the East Coast in the last few summers are a single individual, but I am not sure whether that has been confirmed.

That's an interesting point that refutes my position that most extralimital birds are not seen. If the same individual Western Reef-Heron was seen in several different locations it would indicate a higher level of birder coverage than I expected. However, I would temper this my saying that coastal birds - especially herons - are more easily seen than most birds (ie rails, warblers, sparrows) that stay out of sight. Therefore, extralimital birds of this type are less commonly discovered than more visible species like waders and raptors. Do you agree?

ADCBB: I think that is correct. The smaller and more cryptic birds are going to be harder to find, especially outside of breeding season, so some individual birds are going to go unnoticed. At the same time, most extralimital species seem to follow some sort of misguided route - a spring migration that takes them too far or a winter migration that somehow ends up on the wrong continent. Except for birds that only touch the edges of the ABA area, their route is likely to pass through some areas with few birders and others with lots of birders. So the (hypothetical) Northern Lapwing that is missed in Nunavut could be spotted around Cape Cod, Cape May, or the Eastern Shore.

Passing through the same areas that local migrants favor (and, with them, birders) would certainly improve the chances that they are discovered. So a bird will continue it's general north-south or south-north migration even though it's on a different continent?

ADCBB: I think that the north-south instinct is still pretty strong, even if the east-west coordinates are off. If you look at distribution maps for rare species, the sightings tend to cluster around certain areas of the country. There are large clusters along the southern border, mainly in the Southwest, and there are other clusters along the Pacific or Atlantic seaboards, which suggests birds that entered through the Arctic followed North American flyways. I think that both of these represent a misguided migratory instinct. It would be interesting to know if studies of vagrancy patterns would confirm that.

What about species that don't migrate as far? What do you think about patterns of species like Arctic gulls (Ivory, Ross' etc) or Great Gray Owls, that aren't necessarily following flyways?

ADCBB: The flyways are really just broad fronts along which birds move, whether because of geography, weather patterns, or some other factor. Each species, of course, has more specific routes. I think the shorter distance migrants still follow flyways, but just not as far. When Ivory Gulls come south, their destinations seem fairly predictable (see map).

Awesome map. OK, let's wrap this up with a prediction. I think that of all the extralimital birds that arrive in the US, only about 1/3 are found by birders. How many do you think are found and why?

ADCBB: I think it's a little over half. Extralimital birds that enter the country seem likely to end up in a spot frequented by many birders, so they ought to be found eventually, even if it takes some time. A lot of the more cryptic species will go unnoticed, either from being missed or being misidentified as common birds, but a higher percentage of the rest will be found.

This is awesome

New gigantic RBA map available from Birdingonthe.net

Interview with a Woodpecker

I'm wicked busy with law school these days and haven't been paying as much attention to interviews as I'd like. Don't worry.

For now, watch this clip from the BBC's incredibly incredible Life of Birds series. In it, Master Attenborough calls a woodpecker down to him by mimicking his tree-knocks.

It works for North American wookpeckers, too. One time in upstate NY I called a Red-Bellied Woodpecker (I think, maybe a Sapsucker) into my by copying it's double-knock. Great times.

Why This Is Fake

This video has been making the rounds recently because dumb people think it's hilarious. You've probably seen it in an forwarded email from one of your dumb friends or your dumb boss.

But I know it's fake. How? There's no such thing as a "Canadian Brown Finch."

Also, Bob Odenkirk made it.