Gone Birds

There's a Facebook page called Ghosts of Gone Birds which I find really interesting. The page contains artworks of birds that are extinct or nearly extinct. They often hold exhibitions in London and the works showing there are really superb. Few months ago, someone photographed a mysterious duck at Chiang Saen lake, Chiang Rai Province. From that first blurry image, it has chestnut plumage with white head and interesting black and white pattern on the head. The shape looked similar to shelducks and it seemed to have the same body colour as the Ruddy Shelduck. This provoked the idea of hybridization between Ruddy Shelduck and some other species. I tried to think of a species with this black and white head pattern and in the end, I could only think of the (probably) extinct Crested Shelduck (Tadorna cristatus) which was found in East Asia. It would be a very exciting record if that's the case. However, the truth revealed when someone actually got better images of the duck. It actually turned out to be some kind of a feral Mallard. That was such a big shock for me. By the way, I decided to make this painting of a pair of Crested Shelduck among the Japanese Mizu-bashou (Lysichiton camtschatcense), a flower found in northern parts of Japan during summer in lakes and marshes. Probably, I'll be painting more extinct birds from now. It's quite fun with all the creativity I can put into the paintings.