My first venture into making my own decoys was in grad school when I took payment for some landscaping work in the form of a sheet of black decoy cork. With that one sheet of cork I made three can blocks and nine greenwings. That was in 1983, and I'm still hunting over those can blocks 33 seasons later. This bird came a little bit later in the process. Like a lot of decoy carvers, I have a soft spot for cans.

Like a lot of my current decoys, this bird is hollow and self-righting. The body is northern white cedar, the head is basswood, and the keel is oak, painted in acrylics. From the patina of mud you can see that this bird already has a few seasons under his belt, and has been hunted over since 2010.

I like low headed, contented birds for my decoy spreads, and I have some low head cans. They are one of the few species that have a particularly long neck, and a more alert pose doesn't necessarily signal danger. The taller decoys show up from further away.