Oil on Panel - 4 x 4 inches
Here is my oil painting of a female Common Merganser. I observed it swimming and diving along with a White-winged Scoter and Common Goldeneye in Agate Bay, Two Harbors, on March 29th and 30th of this year.
The three birds seemed to be getting along famously and hung out by the ice shelf that occupied the waters near the Edna G, an old tugboat.
Edward Howe Forbush wrote about this bird in the 1936 edition of Birds of America. His comment, seemingly geared toward waterfowl hunters in particular, is the following: “Its flesh as ordinarily cooked is so rank and strong that its flavor is not much superior to that of an old kerosene lamp-wick but some of the hardy gunners of the Atlantic coast know how to prepare it for the table in a way to make it quite palatable.”
Did your stomach turn a little bit after reading that? Mine did.
Perhaps the most famous photo of a female Common Merganser is a mama with 76 ducklings in tow. It was taken on Minnesota's Lake Bemidji in 2018. It’s worth a look.
Stay wild, my friends.
References
Katz, B. (2018, July 26). Why a female duck was spotted with a huge brood of 76 ducklings. Smithsonian magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-female-duck-was-spotted-huge-brood-76-ducklings-180969757/
Pearson, T.G. (1936). Birds of America. Garden City Books.
Copyright notification: The internet is a scary place. I have seen my artwork on unauthorized websites. This is called stealing, also known as copyright infringement. The only authorized websites allowed to display my artwork are www.beccamulenburg.com, www.beccamulenburg.blogspot.com, and galleries currently showing my work. Any other website, posting, sales of my work, or the like, is illegitimate and operating under copyright infringement which is against the law. Anyone found to have infringed a copyrighted work may be liable for statutory damages up to $30,000 for each work infringed and, if willful infringement is proven by the copyright owner, that amount may be increased up to $150,000 for each work infringed. Please be aware. Copyrights do not transfer with the sale of any of my artworks.
Comments
Post a Comment