Tom Park 
HABITAT
An Exploded Cattail
By Tom Park
In the spring, when the male yellow-headed blackbird is in his full breeding plumage and displaying for his mate, he seeks the highest spot in the marsh. With the new cattails just starting to grow, that spot is often the top of a cattail from the previous year. So when I recently carved one of these birds, I decided to place him on an exploded cattail.
In my part of the country, winter is not kind to cattails. By spring, the entire marsh looks like a tangled mess. Wind, rain, snow, and ice have taken their toll. Leaves and stems are bent, broken, twisted, discolored, and otherwise mutilated. The seed head is partially or fully exploded so wind and water can spread the seeds. If I wanted to make a realistic setting for my blackbird, I had to replicate these features.
As any experienced carver will tell you, the first step in any project is gathering reference material. Photographs help, but the best reference is the real thing. Collect many samples and study them carefully to get a good idea of the characteristics of the leaves and stems. It is also important to examine the seed head carefully and note the overall shape and the patterns of the explosions. I also made sketches and mock-ups until I had a composition I liked. I decided to include six individual plants. Two would have partially exploded seed heads and the bird would perch on the top of the highest one, with his feet clutching the exploded portion. The second seed head would be on a slightly lower stalk. The remaining four cattails would be shorter, broken, and bent and would retain only portions of leaves. I decided to mount all the cattails in an irregularly shaped base carved and painted to represent water with ripples.
Read the rest of this article in Wildfowl Carving Magazine's Spring 2009 issue!
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