OWEN WILLIAMS

LIMITED EDITION BRONZES

BY OWEN WILLIAMS

I have been a professional wildlife artist for 32 years and throughout that time woodcock have been my constant muse. Indeed from the first time I saw a woodcock as a young lad, which occurred in the fading light of a winter’s evening, I was captivated by the mystery surrounding this enigmatic species.

After painting countless studies and pictures of woodcock in landscape I finally gave in to the temptation to try my hand at sculpting woodcock in bronze. This was prompted by spending the past 10 years catching ringing and tagging woodcock in order to research their migration and habits. Having caught over 2000 I have become familiar with the unique personality exhibited by individuals; some are passive, but others become quite vocal offering up various grunts and growls for the short period of time taken to ring and take biometric measurements. 

It is this personality which has been captured in my sculpture.

It is with considerable pleasure that I have found a way to use my art to fund scientific research into woodcock. For every bronze I sell I buy a small tracker called a geo-locator that I fit to a woodcock on my study site in West Wales. The purchaser of the bronze is invited to join me fitting the tag to their own live woodcock. These tags do not transmit data, so the bird has to be recaptured the following year in order for the tag to be removed and the data downloaded. This data reveals details of where the woodcock has been over the past year.

The tags that I have fitted on my ringing site so far are making a valuable contribution to the woodcock research being conducted by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust. As a result we now have a much clearer idea of where our wintering woodcock go to breed in the summer, and also the routes they take to get there.

Each bronze sold comes with its own limited edition book which records the owners name, the edition number of their bronze and a unique reference number for the tag fitted to their woodcock. This represents a unique piece of ‘provenance’ to go with their bronze. If their woodcock’s data is recovered they will also receive a map showing where their woodcock has been. This can then be inserted in their book.