Wild Birds

Carvings by Tad Yesaki

Photographs by Roy Hamaguchi

Text by Donna Yoshitake Wuest

Wild Birds is a celebration of the art, talent, and nintai, perseverance, of two Japanese Canadians – carver Tad Yesaki and photographer Roy Hamaguchi -- who have pursued their art for more than a half-century… not as a career, but as a passion. Before they retired, Tad was a fisherman based in Steveston and Roy was an engineer in the aerospace and electronic technology industries in Canada and the United States. Wild Birds introduces the artists in separate biographies and features page after page of full-colour images of Tad’s carvings and Roy’s photographs. Tad’s carvings include some of the decoys he carved forty years ago and follow the evolution of his talent to the Gadwall carving that won first place in the 2008 Canadian National Wildfowl Carving Competition. Roy’s amazing photographs range from a flock of Snow Geese taking off into the pink sky, to a triptych showing a White-tailed Eagle’s bungled attempt to steal a trout from a Red-crowned Crane, to a Red-necked Grebe showing off her baby. For each image, Roy or Tad has an anecdote to share.

soft cover | 92 pages, 89 colour photographs throughout | October 2008