_edited.png)
Fall 2017 Vulture and Blackbird Collections
As our favorite time of the year approaches here at Timber Tiger Treasures, I begin to contemplate some of the finishing touches for the upcoming Fall 2017 Collections. Ideally, these would have been posted about one month ago, but better late than never I guess. Having an online store has been an overwhelming amount of work, about 90% of it totally "behind the scenes" small jobs that I never thought I'd ever be doing. Like starting this blog!
The fall line-up will include some of the following birds:
* Various Vultures from around the world. I want to help raise awareness regarding a huge crisis we in the US are probably unaware of; the rapid decline of a massive number of vultures abroad, mainly Africa and Asia. Birds that were once some of the most common just ten years ago are now on the IUCN's CRITICALLY Endangered Red List. The main cause, of course, is people. Here is an article that goes into more detail and how people can help fix this problem before our natural "clean-up crew" goes extinct and we all have to deal with the spread of fun new diseases. I say "fun" out of sarcasm, obviously.
Luckily, some of our US zoos help house some of these threatened species and we were able to see them this past summer. Zoo Atlanta and the Cleveland Zoo house some of these now endangered species and help spread awareness to the general public about what is going on with these species and also how everyone can help. My favorite had to be the Hooded Vulture at ZooAtl (I think he was my favorite animal we saw that day....and that's saying something considering we also saw a Laughing Kookaburra and baby Pandas!)
My second and final Fall 2017 collection will include Blackbirds. What better time of year to really study these beautiful birds than Fall? We always get hoards of Grackles, Starlings, and Crows visiting throughout the year and I've compiled a huge folder of photographs of each species. (Also some Ravens in northern MI, but not good enough to sketch from.)
When sunlight hits their seemingly "black" plumage, they seem to light up with every color of the rainbow in an almost holographic effect. I want to bring notice to the beauty of these often ignored (and sometimes annoying) birds.
That about sums up what I'll be working on for the next month. Be on the lookout for new products featuring all of these birds (and maybe some others!)
