Very striking and gorgeously detailed! So beautiful!

awesome work congratulations

Oh wow, this is so beautiful, all the details are amazing

You just get better and better with your leather work!

Aww thank you!

Absolutely stunning, beautiful craftsmanship!

Wow, this is beautiful!

Me too! They have such a distinctive silhouette mid-flight.

Every time I see one when I'm driving/walking I'll be like "WHAT IS THAT IT'S HUUUUUGE OH BOY HERON".

any chance we could see a werewolf mask in the future? like two werewolves clawing at a white gem in the forehead? well thats my vision for it any way

It's probably something I wouldn't make unless it was specifically commissioned, but certainly something I could do!

One of these years, I'll have to tell you my Great Blue Heron story.

I've always loved the birds, too - big, beautiful, shy, patient, and utterly lethal to anything small enough to swallow and dumb enough to get too close.

There are only two birds I am afraid of - ratites and herons. I work with raptors, and I'm not afraid of the huge, powerful talons. It's the giant ones that can literally kick your face in, and the ones with a deceptively long neck and lightning fast, spear-like beak. Rehabers use extreme caution when rescuing herons, because they know exactly where to aim that beak - your eyeballs.

It's worse then that, actually. I read a tale of an Audubon bird bander who was working with herons up on the Canadian tundra, and didn't restrain the neck properly as he'd been trained to do. The bird didn't get him in the eye. It stabbed him through the center of his forehead with the full power of that neck, and killed him instantly.

Raptors can do fairly major damage, but big herons and ratites can kill you. I'm glad I've never had to handle them myself.

My heron story is far less dark.

I was in one of my David's Pond birding trips, and was sneaking up on the resident Blue to take a closer look at what he was hunting that night. I laid down in a swampy area, in a dry channel, and watched him from prone so as not to scare him off.

Then some damn coon decided to take a swipe at him and FLOOMPH, into the air he went. Guess what big, startled herons do when they first take off? Guess who was right in the bomb range of that particular bird?

I was given a split second choice: a bath in heron poop or a bath in mud. I picked the latter. Damn heron zoomed over to a neighboring lake, landed in a tree, and told the coon exactly what he thought of him.

And I told that heron exactly what I thought of HIM, too.

I think I heard that bander story before - I imagine it's infamous within birder/banding/rehab circles. Freaking terrifying D:

And ha! To be fair, most birds will poop before taking off to lower their weight. When every gram (or in the case of a heron, ounce) counts, voiding your bowels at takeoff might be the difference between escape and becoming dinner.

Oh, I didn't REALLY blame the heron. Raccoons can be dangerous in their own right, and Big Blue didn't know I was there - he just took off and it was my bad luck he was headed straight for me. I did too good a job of hiding!

And yeah, I know all about birds dumping ballast during takeoffs, especially escape takeoffs. I should have figured out I was in a potential flight path, but there were trees a lot closer he could have flown to in MY lake. Instead, bloody bird takes off for the NEIGHBORING lake, and right over me.

Still, it felt good to cuss out this one bird, just once. ^.^

This mask is amazing! The g.b. heron being my favorite bird, this speaks to my heart :)