April 9th 2007 • Printer version

 

You'll see what's special about Eugene bird artist Larry McQueen if you click on the Great Backyard Bird Count website. With only a quick line or hint of color, he makes you see the subtle differences between a black-capped chickadee and the Carolina variety, or a house finch and a purple finch. His work - photographs, paintings, and scientific illustration - has appeared in The Audubon Master Guide to Birding and numerous calendars, posters, and field guides.  Now McQueen's original paintings are on display at the University of Oregon School of Law, 1515 Agate St. in Eugene.

The exhibit, Spirit of Birds, will continue through August 30 in the law school's first floor administrative offices, open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.,

This year, a new field-guide to the birds of Peru will be published by Princeton University Press with McQueen's illustrations . McQueen said, "The cover shows my painting of two Scarlet-banded Barbets -a species discovered just ten years ago. Peru and Columbia have  the most different species of birds within their borders."

Larry McQueen began watching birds as a child Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania.  He received a degree in ecology and conservation from Idaho State University in 1961 and worked during the summers for the Idaho State Game Commission, investigating the predatory relationship of Golden Eagles and antelope. 

He was drafted into the army in the early 1960s, and  worked on bird projects and other ecological work at Dugway, Utah and Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands.

He attended art classes at the UO after his discharge from the army.