"They weren't valuable," he says. 

 "Some people didn't chase them down if 

 they drifted away." Collector interest 

 dawned in the 1970s, and now, some 

 vintage decoys can fetch hundreds of 

 dollars. 



Roy's new birds begin at about $40. 

 After his father died in 1981, Willis 

 modified the basic body shape the two 

 had used to distinguish the birds they 

 worked on together from his own. 



"Everybody's got their own style," 

 he says. He pulls a tubby bufflehead and 

 a merganser drake with its distinctive 

 crest from a crowded shelf in his cluttered 

 workshop. 



"There's nothing similar about those 

 two," he says. "But if you get to looking 

 at them, you can tell I made them both." 



His workshop is typical of carvers: 

 fragrant with wood scent and sprinkled 



with sawdust. Clusters of heads and 

 heaps of bodies in various stages of 

 refinement cover the workbench and 

 floor space. Decoys strung together like 

 dried onions hang from wall hooks. 

 Overhead shelves are crammed with 

 finished birds. Prize ribbons flutter from 

 some necks, price tags from others. 



Few of those for sale will ever end 

 up on the water - unless Roy takes them 

 himself. He still loves to hunt, and some 

 collectors like a bird better if it has been 

 out on the marsh for a season. 



Some carvers, too, say they have 

 noticed a new interest in decoys used as 

 a centerpiece of a hunting trip. Bernie 

 and Gail Corwin had a dozen calls for 

 working decoys last year. The husband 

 and wife make decoys and sell their 

 work and that of others at their shop, 

 Lucky Duck's in Bettie. 



The Corwins say some hunters 

 don't mind paying for a handsome, 

 handmade decoy they can keep as a 

 desktop souvenir and conversation 

 piece. The bulk of their business, 

 however, is decorative decoys for 

 people interested in nature or heritage, 

 rather than hunting. 



"They just like the birds," Gail says 

 of her customers. "They like the carving 

 for the tradition. It's not from Wal-Mart. 

 Everybody does it differently, and 

 you're getting a part of that person with 

 each decoy." 



Bemie came to carving the way 

 many of his neighbors did. He hunted 

 and carved growing up on Long Island. 



"I come from a long line of market 

 hunters," he says. "My mom always 

 said I was a throwback." He later 

 worked as a hunting guide on the Outer 



14 HOLIDAY 1997 



