Painting Notes - The Verdin
A little bird with some Southwestern flavor
By: Jerry Poindexter
Photography by Dave and Steve Maslowski
The Verdin (Auriparus flaviceps) is a tiny bird that measures between 4 and 4½ inches in length. It has a short, pointed bill and a short tail, with a yellow head and a reddish-brown shoulder patch. You can spot the verdin at the ends of thorny bushes in the dry county of the Southwest. It builds a surprisingly large nest for such a small bird.
The pattern and painting notes for this article were derived from study skins at the Museum of Natural History’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Read the rest of this article in Wildfowl Carving Magazine's Fall 2015 issue.