In 1938, when Bob Spear was 18 years old, a stray parakeet flew into the woodshed on their Colchester, Vermont, farm and became the model for his first wood carving. To date he has carved 470 birds for the Birds of Vermont Museum. Totally self-taught, Bob has tackled each bird species and its unique set of carving problems. With each bird he has improved his technique of portraying fine details of feathering. Earlier bird carvings show a beauty in their simplicity, and a progression of more intricate detailing can be traced with later works, until the most recent ones that show an unbelievable realism, to the point of wanting to touch to ascertain if the feathers are real. Many visitors can be heard to question “This is wood?”

The collection of carvings is arranged in groups by habitat settings.

The main gallery has all the Vermont nesting birds in pairs, with their nests (real) and eggs (wooden) in the habitats typical of each bird species, in over 150 free-standing cases.

Hanging from the ceiling are Vermont’s hawks in flight, life-size, and showing the coloring and feather patterns that distinguish the raptors from one another.

On one side of the main gallery is a Winter Diorama showing the birds likely to visit Vermont only in winter, and only in years when their food supplies up north have dwindled.

On the balcony is another raptor exhibit showing hawks with typical prey. The Bald Eagle took Bob 400 hours to complete, because of the large size and in particular because the brown color on the bird is burned rather than painted.

Downstairs at the main entrance is a loon family that took 850 hours to carve and paint. This leads into the Wetland Diorama, a collection of 63 ducks and shorebirds, which is currently in progress. Twenty-eight of the larger shorebirds have been completed.

Across the hall in a special gallery of Endangered and Extinct Birds of North America are 29 birds and an Archaeopteryx. Bob’s largest carving is here, the California condor, which took him 500 hours to carve. This more recent bird is so realistically detailed that each wing took 100 hours to make.

Bob still has 100 birds to carve to complete his collection of Vermont birds. When this is finished he plans to carve Vermont’s butterflies, all 100 of them. He has a prototype finished, the Canadian Tiger Swallowtail, with all its stages attached to its favorite lilac host plant. All carved out of wood.