Ode to the Easton Waterfowl Festival
This Bird Time! blogger went on the road and had a grand ol' time.
So apparently bird festivals are thing. And more specifically, celebrations of waterfowl exist—as evidenced by the 51st Waterfowl Festival of Easton, Maryland. A few months ago on a whim I Googled regional bird festivals and discovered this long-running three-day event. Needless to say, I decided straightaway to attend with my wife. Although we were only up in Easton for a brief period, the festival was a grand ol’ time and I recommend it to any birders who want to relax and get out of town.
There were multiple events to choose from and plenty of people who had traveled from across the country to attend. Among the items on the agenda were art shows, exhibits of historic duck decoys, fly fishing demonstrations, Delmarva Dock Dogs, children’s decoy painting classes, local bands, beer gardens and food trucks, raptor demonstrations, and the World Waterfowl Calling Championship.
Downtown was sectioned off from traffic, and families strolled around enjoying BBQ or ice cream while looking at booths or taking a shuttle to one of the events further afield. Those who bought tickets in-person or online in advance wore little tags to let them into festival events and also were able to put their name in for a couple of prize drawings.
The galleries were full of beautiful paintings and bronze sculptures—all of which were as life-like as they were exclusively priced. One sculptor, Ronnie Wells, was there with his wife and has been coming yearly from Salado, Texas. He runs his own gallery and has racked up a long list of local and national awards dating back to 1984. At the Festival, his sculpture Intrusion was on display, along with a certificate noting it won the “People’s Choice Award” of the Georgetown Public Library/Texas Society of Sculptors 2022 Summer Sculptor Show and sold for a cool $18,000. Pretty darn neat for someone who quit his job as a hospital medical illustrator in 1972 to pursue his true passion. Mr. Wells and his wife were both friendly and spent some time chatting with me and other interested visitors about his art process and how he makes his pieces in clay before casting them in bronze. To illustrate his point, he had the clay head of a dog he was working on with him; it rotated on a platform and he pressed his fingers into its neck and jowls make adjustments.
There was also an exhibit of historic and modern duck decoys—for which I had no idea such a large and intense market existed. For instance, realistic or antique duck decoys were routinely listed for sale at hundreds or thousands of dollars. (There was one case of a pair of decoys carved around 1915-1917 by a famous Massachusetts artist A. Elmer Crowell that sold for $1.13 million in 2012.)
There were also two different companies with booths set up explicitly to help decoy owners do their market research and maximize their profits. This is a topic I fully intend to write a separate post about, including an interview with two different folks—one who makes decoys and another who helps to sell them.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior also had a booth set up at which they advertised the national Junior Duck Stamp Program. This is a national competition whereby students K-12 submit their “drawing, painting or sketching a picture of an eligible North American waterfowl species” to be featured on a stamp that raises conservation funds. This is another topic I intend to write a separate post about as some Bird Time! readers have art-minded kids who might one day be interested in competing.
Another event at the festival was a raptor demonstration at the local VFW. Brian and Teddy Bradley of Skyhunters in Flight showed off multiple birds of prey over an hour-long educational show. Having never been able to photograph an owl before, this was an ideal opportunity (even if seeing them this way vs in the wild could be called cheating). Once I organize all of my photos from this trip, I’ll write a post just about the raptors, but among those Mr. and Mrs. Bradley showed were an American Barn Owl, a Eurasian Eagle Owl, a Harris Hawk and a Red-tailed Hawk.
Finally, there were a smattering of other events we either passed by or did not have the time to properly explore during our brief trip. Delmarva Dock Dogs had a competition where people’s dogs jumped off a dock to swim and retrieve a toy. There was a fire pit with live music and a bunch of tents with food and wares, including one dedicated exclusively to Italian arms manufacturer Benelli and their hunting shotguns.
There were also clinics for kids to learn how to do duck calls and successive stages of the World Waterfowl Calling Championship (although we were unable to attend the finals due to a misprint in the event schedule). Also for history nerds, Easton, Maryland is the birthplace of the famed abolitionist orator Frederick Douglas. In fact, there were several commemorative signs and a group (I believe from the Frederick Douglas Historical Society) that had a table with books, stickers, and handouts to keep his legacy alive.
All in all, the Easton Waterfowl Festival was a great experience and I hope to return in the future. Please be on the look out for related future posts and let me know if you’ve ever attended a bird festival!
Until next (Bird!) time,
Grover