Longtime bird counter at Duluth's Hawk Ridge captures birds on canvas

If you're planning a late trip to see raptors from Hawk Ridge in Duluth add an hour for a show of beautiful bird paintings by a man who formerly was the official counter of hawks on the ridge.

Karl Bardon, 56, known for his keen eye at distant identification of hawks and other birds, has transferred that skill to canvas.

His precision depicting birds is enhanced by his ability to hint at backgrounds and landscapes, the birds always foremost.

His show at the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth is entitled "A Life of Birds II."

Bardon has been watching birds closely since he was a teen when birding with his father in North Oaks, the St. Paul suburb. His close attention has continued as a bird census counter in many migration locations.

He was at Hawk Ridge for 11 years. He has counted raptors during migration in Virginia, New York, Florida and Mexico. He has counted waterbirds in Michigan, and seabirds at Point Pinos in California.

"My summers are usually spent doing bird point counts in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I've done four seasons of bird field work in Alaska," he said. (Point counts are important to bird conservation.)

He paints with acrylics from his own photos, his field work providing many opportunities. "I have tens of thousands of bird and landscape photos," he told me in visits by phone and e-mail.

"The bird is usually the starting point for me," he said. "I use background to help convey what I am trying to say about the bird. Every bird is beautiful in its own way.

"There is also often a particular mood I am trying to express. In that way the background often ends up being a little more abstract or impressionistic," he said.

"I'm very interested in showing how birds are an integral part of their environment, and I love to find repeated patterns between the bird and the background, movement of the bird or particular patterns in plumage and shape," he said.

"I was always into birds but got really serious at age 15, and have birded nearly every day since," Bardon said.

His next field assignment will be this October and November in Panama.

Lifelong birder Jim Williams can be reached at woodduck38@gmail.com.