This painting features Mallards at the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge. In this painting, I wanted to create the effect of a large flock of birds coming in for a landing. I have had large flocks of mallards working my decoys and I am always intrigued at how they move. The whole flock seems to move as one big twirling cloud yet at the same time all the birds within the flock are doing their own thing. I don’t understand how they don’t run into one another. While painting, I often enjoy putting several different species of wildlife in my paintings. At a closer look, you might see an American widgeon, a Eurasian widgeon, a hen pintail, and a great egret …so look closely at my other paintings.