PHOTOGRAPH

Boat-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus major)

Found throughout Florida, the Boat-tailed Grackle, as opposed to its cousin the Common Grackle, is almost solely found in coastal areas up and down the East Coast. You know when you see a male by their aptly named long tail, which they hold folded into a v-shape, like the keel of a boat. Much smaller in size and a dirty brown color, females look like an entirely different species.

Omnivores, Grackles eat nearly anything they can find including scavenging discarded human food scraps.

Very unique for birds, Boat-tailed Grackle mating is similar to that of deer and other large game. Called harem defense polygyny, females gather in colonies and males compete to mate with the entire colony. Research suggests, however; that many more males than the “winner” end up mating with the females when it is all said and done.

LOCATION

Green Cay Wetlands, Boynton Beach, FL

The Green Cay Wetlands were created in 2004, converted from farmland in Boynton Beach. The park is a water reclamation center, similar to the Wakodahatchee Wetlands, naturally filtering millions of gallons of waste water each day.

A raised boardwalk through the property allows visitors to be as close or closer to the wildlife as one would be in a zoo, yet here they are free, in their natural landscape, exhibiting their behaviors.

Although only two miles from Wakodahatchee there’s notable difference in the species prevalent in each location. This shows how small differences in ecosystems can have a large impacts on the species that inhabit them. Taken into a different context this is a very apt example for how great an effect climate change can have on ecosystems that are changing rapidly.

FRAME

Cuban Mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni)

Cuban Mahogany is one of three species of Mahogany and it was originally the most widely used of the three. Nowadays, Honduran Mahogany is the much more prevalent wood and what most people would recognize as Mahogany. Native to the Carribbean, Cuban Mahogany’s northernmost range does include the far south of Florida, including the Keys. I happen to get all of my Cuban mahogany from a salvager in the Keys who removes the trees from construction sites before cutting it into slabs and drying it.

THE ELEMENTS

Fire, Water, Earth, and Air

In the display case in the bottom of the frame, four items are preserved glass vials. The items represent the elements: fire (wood charcoal), water (mineral oil), earth (soil), and air (a milkweed seed). I include these items in my work as a symbol of the interconnectedness of all life on earth, and as a reminder that humans must do better.

The Plaque

I engrave a wooden information plaque for each work. The plaque includes what the photograph is of, the location of the photograph, what type of wood the frame is made of and where I got the wood from. The plaques also explain what the vials are in each display case, and even state the meaning of my logo. The plaques are attached magnetically and can be removed to read or to store on the back of each frame if you prefer not to have it displayed on the front.