Best in Show

      Let me give you a little information on Ocellated Turkey (Melagris ocellata), a bird I suspect is unfamiliar to many of you.

     It is a scarce endemic of the Yucatán Peninsula of Central America, eagerly sought after by visiting birders, but difficult to find. A bird of mystery, outrageous in every respect, shrouded in legend, threatened over much of its range and secretive for most of the year. 

".....glossed green and copper.....shining dark copper across greater wing coverts.....whitish secondary panels.....white remiges.....bright cobalt blue head.....supercilia of bright orange "warts".....head and upper neck, including small dewlap, naked and bright cobalt blue, with orange-red caruncles scattered on neck-sides....." 

Steve Madge and Phil McGowan, Pheasants Partridges & Grouse, Helm Identification Guides (2002)

     And there is more. Much more. Every extreme colour, every psychedelic, peyote-induced apparition of the subconscious mind is present in this bird.

     Who you might ask, possessed of all their powers of reason, with well-balanced faculties, a model of stability, would attempt to create this apparition from a block of wood?

     Jeff Krete, that's who!

     Some of you may remember my love affair with the refined art of wood carving and its practitioners preceding the days when COVID made all of us prisoners in our homes - as a refresher, here is the report I composed following a rendez-vous with Jeff Krete, World Champion.

     This past weekend I was fortunate, for the third time, to be asked to be a judge at the Canadian Nationals, where carvers from all over Canada come together to display their art and vie for honours. Works of sublime execution are arrayed in all their glorious diversity, with waterfowl, songbirds, owls, woodpeckers and the like dominating the field. And then there is the deviation from the norm!

     Le voilà - a full size rendition of an Ocellated Turkey.

     I swear to you on all that is precious to me, that when I first saw this bird, had it hopped down from the table and walked toward me I would not have registered surprise. 

     Such is the quality of Jeff's work. 

     I am grateful to Jeff for all of the pictures in this post, illustrating as they do its elegance of form and the scintillating realism of the colours. It is good to recall that just as alchemy sought to transform useless stone and metal into gold and other precious metals, this divine creation began life as a rectangular block of wood.

     Jeff has proved that alchemy is not always an illusion.

     How can we imagine what it takes to create this lifelike sculpture? Who among us would even be bold enough to contemplate it?

     If for one foolish moment I even dreamed I could do it I would need to lie down until the feeling passed and reality reasserted itself.

     The sheer perfection, to say nothing of the colour fidelity of these feather tracts, is a testament to artistry and diligence. How many hours were spent to achieve such results? What levels of frustration? Did it seem the colours would never be quite right? Were there times when it would have been tempting to give up?

     For Jeff I am sure this was never an option and that, of course, is why Jeff occupies a pedestal reserved only for champions.

     The bird is but one part of the whole, however. No organism lives in a vacuum; all are part of an integrated ecosystem.

     Do you not marvel with me at the exquisite detail of the flora and fauna that share their home with the turkey? The base of the piece becomes a diorama in miniature.

     I hasten to remind you that each component of this work, from the butterfly to the smallest smudge of moss, every leaf, every flower, every stem is created by Jeff.

     Truly the work of a connoisseur. Best in show was richly deserved.

     This award celebrates Al Forler, a veteran and treasured member of this fraternity, and it was very fitting that Al was present to share in Jeff's achievement.

      Well done Maestro Krete. We salute you!