2024 Duck Stamp Contest

Remember this: Talent can win more than once. Reading the directions are important.

Every year I follow the United States Fish and Wildlife Duck Stamp Competition. I usually follow Kira Sabin and her process as she selects the duck of choice to paint and her wins and struggles for getting to final shippable submission. She has sat as a judge for the juvenile duck stamp competition and provides excellent input. 

At first glance, you understand this is a lump of 300 or so entries that are of different levels of artistic ability and growth. In good purpose, giving someone the opportunity to attempt, and try again another day, is a learning curve of how not to give up but to come back to the drawing board and try again after improving one's skills as an artist, more so a wildlife artist.

Time and practice can cure a lot of problems. 

With that being said, a lot of the submissions were probably cut due to not reading the requirements. 

In the instructions, it stated something to the effect that you could choose from the migratory fowl, but you had to put in the conservation aspect and the habitat. Alot of these are migratory fowl swimming or suspended on water with some sprigs of grass. Its starts looking like a Sears portrait studio photo shoot. 

It views, "I am a beautiful duck, watch me swim."

2025 Winner by James Hautman 

Three Buffleheads

Here are some entries I wanted to review:

(Click on images to enlarge)

This image provided light and color and action with the above-below water line visuals. There is a hint of the cattails in the background. 

Several of these were hyper-realistic but lacked the conservation and habitat or action.

This image was camera worthy for realism but was portraiture with no story behind it.

This was a nice little photo with the underwater foot and bubble with the ripple of the reflection.

These two entries were cool neutral but still lacked conservation and habitat.

I thought this entry dabbled in the folklore and stop action imagery but had a suggested story, migratory fowl on the borderline of human habitation and industry. It looked intentionally different visually.

This entry was a great action shot with complimentary background.

These two entries I adored for the attention to detail and how much work it must have took.

This little entry right here was different. It is different to me because here you have the known and unknown where Conservation isn't always right there in your face. 

The questions to ask are:

Why is there a decoy present?

Is the decoy implemented for wildlife conservation science or active hunting?

What happens if the little fowl disappears forever from the landscape due to over hunting, disease, or limiting factors that will cause there to only be the remnants of floating fowl decoys that will drift till they get caught up in the mud, moor themselves in the grasses, or sink to the depths?

Will there be another image like this for the future or will this be a reminder reaching out from the past that illustrates the loss we will have as a country when a political pen swipes a paper and slowly but surely rubs it out like No 2 lead on paper? Because of revenge? Retribution? Religious fanaticism?

It is quite an image to ponder on. You travel from pristine, beautiful healthy fowl to what if it were to all end tomorrow?

These online events and competitions can bring people to love it and study on the greater ethos of Conservation and those creatures and landscapes within it and to those people that wake up and go to sleep every night with its past, present, and future always on their minds.

Go ahead and put it on your calendar for next year, practice and save up that entry fee. You will not regret it!

If you would like to view images click the link: 

2025 Federal Duck Stamp Contest Entries | Flickr

Federal Duck Stamp Contest & Event Information | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Adieu!

Footnote: All images are subject to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service copyright. Images used solely to support contest and spread awareness of wildlife conservation, conservation law, and public service awareness through education and learning.

Hiding in the Grass

Remember this: Count your accomplishments to know your effectiveness.

I was watching this eagle hunting on a field; decided today would be a good day to go hunting. I went down to the woods, realized the lane was slick as eel crap. A fat doe walked out in front of me like she was grocery shopping. I had Nena Two Feathers with me. We got out and walked around the grassy, wildlife lane I cut with the lawnmower. I walked up on the sandy hill and cut some witch cane, then walked over to the other stand. It was 12:30 pm. I could hear either someone sitting in the woods blowing like a buck, or a buck. I would later hear this again mixed in with the sound of a bull. These are two distinct sounds. I walked back to the truck and left.

I went back around 2:30 pm. There was no bait anywhere. I decided not to go into my dad’s man cave of a stand. Walked through the briars and mud to get to my stand I hadn’t been in for two years; sat there for a while in the calm, watching a squirrel dig nuts out of the leaves. I was reading this book called The Luminaries, when I heard a lizard scurrying under the black trash bag. I looked out the hole. At the end of the lane in the woods, two doe walked across. One stopped, and I could have tagged her out, but decided she was far away for a shot. The temperature began to drop and I was getting cold. I heard something crashing through the water in the swamp. I sat there a while. I heard this high-pitched, musical sound that was like a loon call. I relieved the trigger of my rifle, put my book in my bag, then put everything on my back and crawled out the deer stand. 

I slowly made my way through the woods and the water to the man cave. I put my rifle down with my backpack. I took my broken camera out then walked over to the side of the duck pond, which is elevated. I got down on my stomach, crawled up the side in the mud and briers then waited to see if I was discovered. 

I could hear and see the migratory birds calling and playing in the water. I started to laugh at my shenanigans of trying to take a picture of ducks with a broken camera. I watched them for a while. If I had stayed still, I could have gotten away with it for a long time. I finally stood up to take a photo; they flew off. I laughed, but was like meehhh, at the same time. I decided I was going to build a nature blind so I can take photos, undiscovered, in a couple of days.

Listening to those ducks was the most tranquil thing. I began reflecting on my successes, riddled with typos, with this particular construction into creative writing.

My greatest success here is: I wrote bulk posts and didn’t have to kill one animal to do it. This illustrates the unnecessary activity of people who chose to kill to compliment a work, instead of it just being for food. There again, if you’re hunting something for food, then happen to write something up, it is all in your intention.

My point got across in whatever form it took. I didn’t have to sacrifice my ethics or morals to appease a public audience, because doing such was quietly expected.

In order for you to prove yourself, and be accepted into the social media hunting community, it is implied to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt of your validity. I said, “Screw that.”

The bulk of the photography I used was images I took myself. My critique of issues I wrote was directly from my train of thought. Some of the posts are responses that required thought. Ideas just appeared for me to write, which I am grateful for. I didn’t have to hijack people for content, or mine for gold on other people’s pages due to the desperation to be prolific and relevant.

I offered friendship, it was denied. No big deal. I still did what I wanted. I was able to express myself in a creative way. I didn’t want the bad company, or the faux friendship people extend to those they idolize, and douchey people full of their own celebrity. After all, you are still just a regular person; nothing more.

I was reading a book about Georgia O’Keeffe. The writer asked O’Keeffe if she would agree to the writer penning a biography. O’Keeffe tells the author she can write the book only by the information she finds, not what O’Keeffe divulges. I realized even published this wasn’t the deeper version of O’Keeffe. People should have some option of privacy, even in their thoughts.

I wasn’t interested in mining other living peoples’ lives to steal a story that wasn’t mine to tell or take, even though people probably sampled from me. I do like getting my point across to people out to do harm. There are those people that watch what you are doing, get pissed, want you to shut up so they can write the same thing, kind of. Why?

I would suggest this. It is because the individual is enamored of you and can’t express this to you, or they think they are the expert and feel it is their place not yours. These people have all of the connections in the world-so they use you, then hope and pray no one realizes what they are doing. 

With that being said, there are people reading, get the message, and pass it for the truth it is. You know who you are.

The best decision I made was not be accessible by comments. I sidestepped lots of negativity. I can gladly say, I didn’t fight with anyone, other than the random comment by a fake profile, about hunting. My last count was three negative interactions over five years. As a person, I was irrelevant, but as a vat of knowledge, I was priceless.

When it came to people and situations, I deferred to my I Ching of Everything question. There is a simple formula for determining any situation or person by asking these two questions in one:

Are you an Asshole, or are you not?

Drowning down reality with a lot of word play can be relegated to a simple yes or no answer. Don’t complicate things.

What would I know? I am just the voice that speaks from the ether.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth