Bobwhite Quail
I sketched this male bobwhite with pastel
pencils on acid-free grey paper. As a child, I remember falling asleep during
summer to the bobwhites calling. Sometimes we whistled "bob-white" or
"bob-bob-white," and called them close enough to see the birds. For a decade or
more, however, there have been no bobwhites whistling near my Massachusetts
home. With changing farm practices (elimination of fence rows and groundcover),
the demise of the family farm, and urbanization, quail populations have
declined throughout much of their range. The Northern Bobwhite or the Virginia Quail, Colinus
virginianus, is a ground-dwelling bird native to North America, northern
Central America, and the Caribbean. These quail are a popular and economically
important game bird particularly in the US southern states. Bobwhites have a
dark cap stripe behind the eye along the head, black in males and brown in
females; bordering the stripe is white on males and yellow-brown on females.
The body of both sexes is brown, speckled with black, rust, or white.
The original pastel pencil sketch,
presented in a 0.75" wide cherry wood frame (triple matted white on dark brown
on cream to an outer dimension of 17" x 14.75"), is available for $650.00.
Limited edition prints and note cards are also available.
Click here for
availability and price. |