{"id":31645,"title":"Nuttall's Woodpecker","description":"Nuttall\u2019s Woodpecker, inspired by my time in St Helen\u2019s and Merseyside in association with Heart of Glass.","content":"

\"1rekaqlmffyzeh9r0291w84n6joyifs0v9cqa9ynmi4jfvtm.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"Presenting my most recent drawing and gentle reference of the Nuttall\u2019s Woodpecker (Dryobates nuttallii<\/em>), Inspired by my time in St Helen\u2019s and Merseyside in association with Heart of Glass<\/u><\/a>, who have produced my visit as part of their Sense of Green<\/strong> series of events. I\u2019m delighted that as part of my many workshops I will be visiting Shakespeare North Playhouse for the first time (there are still some spaces, so you can book here<\/u><\/a>). In these family friendly workshops I\u2019ll be explaining more about my work, from Pansy Boy<\/u><\/a> to The Pansy Project <\/u><\/a>and Birds Can Fly<\/u><\/a> and I\u2019ll be revealing the process of how I create my gentle references, sharing my tips on drawing and encouraging participants to draw and gently reference their own birds.\u00a0<\/p>

My visit culminates on Saturday 16th September where you\u2019re all welcome to come and share your drawings and references with me, as we wander around Court Hey Park studying the bird life in the there, this \u2018Avian Amble<\/u><\/a>\u2019 is intended to be a relaxed gathering of bird lovers and begins at 12.30pm, book your free place here.<\/u><\/a><\/p>

\"zwl3n9ok2xxiqgddvqmjjp04gxsnidyfcpbgnvpzygq2r8fc.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"So to the bird, Nuttall\u2019s Woodpecker is named after the influential botanist and ornithologist Thomas Nuttall, born in 1786 near Settle, Yorkshire, the young Thomas was always fascinated by nature and lived in Liverpool for a time when he worked with his uncle as a jouneyman printer. He went to Philadelphia in 1808 where he impressed naturalist Benjamin Smith Barton with his enthusiasm for botany. He was mentored by Barton and went on several expeditions, he became renowned as an enthusiastic botanist and ornithologist, with an apparently unusual personality.<\/p>

\u201cNuttall had gained the respect of fellow botanists, but to the public at large, he had also become a prototype of the absent-minded professor, the naturalist as nerd. He first appeared in narratives of the Astor expeditions by Henry Breckenridge and John Bradley, who mocked his impassioned gathering of \u201cweeds,\u201d comical obliviousness to danger, inability to swim, and his use of his rifle to store seeds. In Astoria, Washington Irving labeled Nuttall a \u201czealous botanist\u201d who went \u201cgroping and stumbling along among a wilderness of sweets, forgetful of everything but his immediate pursuit,\u2026.The Canadian voyageurs\u2026 used to make merry at his expense, regarding him as some whimsical kind of madman<\/strong>.\u201d (Kastner 1977) Historian Joseph Kastner calls him \u201ca throwback to that bemused figure of the Middle Ages, the Blessed Fool, who, protected by his own innocence, wandered unharmed from one peril to the next.\u201d (Kastner 1977)\u201d (https:\/\/www.birdobserver.org\/Issues\/2015\/December-2015\/thomas-nuttall-pioneering-naturalist-1786-1859<\/a>)<\/p>

He would go on to mentor William Gambel a young naturalist who named the woodpecker after his mentor. Interestingly Nuttall\u2019s mentor also has a bird named in their honour, the Gambel\u2019s Quail (Callipepla gambelii<\/em>), it\u2019s a close relative of the California<\/u><\/a> Quail (Callipepla californica<\/em>), which I drew and gently referenced a while ago.<\/p>

\"ar03k9bvfsp0lxfvllmrrct0ncdyz4gxwomn1csui6tuybzf.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"Nuttall was part of several generations of European explorers determined to catalogue, identify and name the flora and fauna of this so-called \u2018new world\u2019.<\/p>

\"f7nakzrrp8v3xc47rr60z64hnijf2ca6iiaze21bimymogak.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"It\u2019s impossible to continue without acknowledging how destructive these early European explorers where. Not only did they disregard, objectify and abuse the indigenous populations of the Americas, they destroyed much of what they were documenting, from plants, animals and birds, they killed many, many birds, sometimes hundreds in one day just to enable specimens to be compared, in order to categorise and identify these birds for \u2018modern science\u2019. There are several detailed accounts from some of the key figures involved, their descriptions are cruel and disturbing and can be read online (some are linked below). This disregard and even hatred of the natural world and bio-diversity can be traced back to Henry VIII, as described in my last blog here<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>

\"y9kszdbmd7z9r8xpihbzrrhzbhomatemiqdwj1fjw2tgkjbu.webp.webp?w=1140&v=2\"When we reflect on ornithology and the people involved we must acknowledge the cultural context of the time, the western world was built on the invasion and destruction of the so-called \u2018new world\u2019 and there is no escape from the implications this has had on our time. John James Audubon (above) ornithologist and artist (who Nuttall supplied specimens to) is correctly criticised today for their treatment of indigenous populations and for their involvement in the slave trade. Calls have been made and recently rejected by the board of the National Audubon Society to have the society renamed<\/u><\/a>. I discuss this more here<\/u><\/a> on the Allen\u2019s Hummingbird blog post. This area of research is vast\u00a0 and complex and I am barely scratching the surface. Suffice it to say more needs to be explored by me and others.\u00a0If you\u2019re interested in this area of research, \u2018Bird Names for Birds\u2019 <\/u><\/a>is a fascinating resource to explore, this <\/u><\/a>article by J.F. McLaughlin on their site describes the implication and impact of Thomas Nuttall and-the-like more succinctly than I. The below is from their site introduction:<\/p>

\u201cThe concern about eponymous and honorific common bird names is not new. But the movement to see these names changed is. Eponyms (a person after whom a discovery, invention, place, etc., is named or thought to be named) and honorific common bird names (a name given to something in honour of a person) are problematic because they perpetuate colonialism and the racism associated with it. The names that these birds currently have\u2014for example, Bachman\u2019s Sparrow\u2014represent and remember people (mainly white men) who often have objectively horrible pasts and do not uphold the morals and standards the bird community should memorialise.\u201d<\/p>

As J.F. McLaughlin explains in their article<\/u><\/a>, Thomas Nuttall is perhaps not the worst player during this time though; \u201chis writings and travels were a part of the myth-making that fuelled, ravenous land grabbing\u201d. Apparently he did object <\/em><\/strong>to much of the behaviour of naturalists and explorers during his explorations and attempted to record the languages of the indigenous tribes he encountered, as described below. The article uses terms that Nuttall used then, that are grossly out of date now, \u201cunfortunate aborigines\u201d and \u201cprimitive language\u201d just add to the ominous tone.<\/p>

\u201cHe hoped to contribute to both natural history and the history of his adopted country, especially of \u201cthe unfortunate aborigines, who are so rapidly dwindling to oblivion.\u201d Along the Ohio he found Shawnees \u201cever flying from the hateful circles of civilized society,\u201d as well as white settlers \u201call searching for some better country\u201d but \u201cdestitute of the means or inclination of obtaining an honest livelihood.\u201d In Arkansas Territory he was repelled by the sight of Osage chiefs begging tobacco and degraded by \u201cintercourse with the civilized world\u201d to acquire \u201cmerely artificial wants,\u201d yet he was impressed by the Quapaws, who, without civilized restraints, had not abandoned \u201cthe obligation to decorum and the essential ties of society.\u201d The Cherokees, granted land in the Territory, might become, Nuttall believed, a \u201cpowerful and independent nation\u201d if they embraced the \u201chabits and industry of the Anglo-Americans.\u201d Elsewhere he\u2019s philosophical about human nature and more skeptical about civilization\u2019s supposed benefits: \u201cYet so nicely balanced, in every situation, is the proportion of good and evil allotted to humanity, that one stage of society has but little advantage over another.\u201d Three appendices to the Journal, with linguistic notes on Southwestern tribes, would, Nuttall hoped, rectify the dismissal of Indian languages as \u201cbarbaric\u201d and \u201ccreate a new era in the history of primitive language.\u201d (Nuttall 1821)\u201d<\/p>

Thomas Nuttall: Pioneering Naturalist: <\/em><\/strong>Source.<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>

The entire tone of the research I have encountered is deeply troubling, despite this Thomas Nuttall emerges as somewhat at odds with the time. In the introduction to \u201cA Manual Of The Ornithology Of The United States And Of Canada\u201d he describes his love of the birds he comes across in the Americas.<\/p>

\u201cThey play around us like fairy spirits\u201d<\/strong><\/h2><\/blockquote>

\u201cOf all the classes of animals by which we are surrounded in the ample field of nature , there are none more remarkable in their appearance and habits than the feathered inhabitants of the air . They play around us like fairy spirits<\/strong>, elude approach in an element which defies our pursuit , soar out of sight in the yielding sky, journey over our heads in marshalled ranks , dart like meteors in the sunshine of summer , or seeking the solitary recesses of the forest and the waters, they glide before us like beings of fancy. They diversify the still landscape with the most lively motion and beautiful association; they come and go with the change of the season , and as their actions are directed by an uncontrollable instinct of provident nature , they may be considered as concomitant with the beauty of the surrounding scene. With what grateful sensations do we involuntarily hail the arrival of these faithful messengers of spring and summer, after the lapse of the dreary winter, which compelled them to forsake us for more favoured climes. Their songs, now heard from the leafy groves and shadowy forests, inspire delight, or recollections of the pleasing past, in every breast. How volatile, how playfully capricious, how musical and happy, are these roving sylphs of nature<\/strong>, to whom the air, the earth and the waters are almost alike habitable. Their lives are spent in boundless action; and nature, with an omniscient benevolence, has assisted and formed them for this wonderful display of perpetual life and vigour, in an element almost their own.\u201d<\/p>

As ever my research continues\u2026<\/h2>

\"u8hzkfcjzdxv0mj9ryopsz1jpszttdso14z51faagpolhqaa.png.png?w=1140&v=2\"A detail of the original drawing<\/em><\/p>

Useful links:<\/p>

Thomas Nuttall: Pioneering Naturalist<\/u><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>

A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States<\/u><\/a><\/p>

Nuttall's Travels into the Arkansa Territory, 1819<\/u><\/a><\/p>

Memoir of the late Thomas Nuttall<\/u><\/a><\/p>

The Gentle Reference<\/h2>

\"gnz2my6rh3xgz0gyqnr9pxw1s53owx7fmrflxudgkksieuel.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"For this gentle reference I decided to echo the crest of the woodpecker, it was actually super easy to make, just an oval of card, painted black, with thinner card, painted and cut into slightly fingery shapes and then assembled onto the fascinator in the style the crest. I then attached it to a transparent head band. It gives the final look a rather widowey look which in the context of the naming of this bird and the article above, seems quite fitting.<\/p>

\"ffx1bvnvw8vzgdhkvlc9uabgmlwi1yo4taafw9ijn9yilhok.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"\"nvmsxicj2rqmjdnluhyddf4vyife4ysf7vnydgbezkljnffj.png.png?w=1140&v=2\"A detail of the original drawing<\/em><\/p>

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