13th Annual Songbird Remix Audubon Sale!

[LisaB]

John James Audubon, born on April 26th, 1785, was the United States dominant wildlife artist for half a century. His seminal work, Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size prints, is still a standard by which bird artists are measured. In his later years, Audubon sounded the alarm about the destruction of birds and their habitats. After his death, the Audubon Society was formed and carried his legacy into the future.

Today, Ken Gilliland carries the spirit of JJ Audubon’s work into the 3D digital age by promoting avian artistry and environmental awareness through his Songbird ReMix series. While his contribution to the bird conservation community is an ongoing thing, once a year he hosts a special sale event to bring awareness to the world of birds and raise funds necessary to protect them and their habitat.

This years sale features a new product, “Shorebirds Volume 4: More Large Waders” which has 15 species of Shorebirds (20 in all) with some breeding/non-breeding variations, and more of the Songbird ReMix library updates which brings older versions to current technical standards.

These updates include: all 3 volumes of the Shorebirds series, both volumes of Flock Formations, and Ostriches. Apart from some geometry, coding and texture changes, the folder structure has been changed to have everything put under one folder (birds, props, materials and poses) in both Poser and DAZ Studio native formats. All four render engines are now supported with Iray, 3Delight, Superfly and Firefly presets. All birds are presented in “character” formats -- that means one click loads the "ready to render" bird. Further updates will continue until every Songbird ReMix set has been upgraded.

2019 marks thirteen years of this highly anticipated 3D bird event. Audubon California has a promotion called “Give $5, Save 5 birds”, paying the farmer to leave their crops standing which saves endangered Tri-colored Blackbird chicks from being “harvested” along with the crop that is their home. This year we start off with some good news; California Fish and Wildlife has finally and officially declared the Tri-colored Blackbird an endangered species. The Tri-colored blackbird, an endemic Californian species, has been championed by my charity sale and has saved over 30,000 blackbird chicks, however, the fight isn’t over yet with forces moving to unprotect everything by removing the Federal Endangered Species Act (FESA), so the battle continues.

Each year, Ken has donated a significant portions of his proceeds from the Audubon Birthday Sale to Audubon California. Over the years, the sale has generated thousands of dollars for Audubon. This year, 33% (or more) of Ken’s proceeds on the 2019 Audubon's Birthday Sale will be donated to Audubon California who is directly responsible for preserving many of the birds featured in his Songbird Remix series.

​

We asked Ken some questions to find out more about Audubon, what else we can do and why saving birds is something everyone should care about. See the full interview here.

Come celebrate Audubon's Birthday with us
and save big on Songbird Remix items!​

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I start off my Audubon's birthday sale with a some quotes to set the tone and to show why I focus on birds and nature in my art and products, so here we go...

"A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children."​

-- John James Audubon, 1785 - 1851
​

"There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences."​

-- Robert Ingersoll, 1833 – 1899
​

“Birds should be saved for utilitarian reasons; and, moreover, they should be saved because of reasons unconnected with dollars and cents...
The extermination of the Passenger Pigeon meant that mankind was just so much poorer... And to lose the chance to see frigate-birds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad of terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach— why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time.”

—-Theodore Roosevelt, 1916​

 

[Ken Gilliland]

The updates to Shorebirds v1-3 are now live... if you don't have them, they're great sets and will go well with many Nature's Wonders sets (Lizards, Turtles, Frogs, Water Lily Garden, Moths, Big Cypress and more)

Songbird ReMix Shorebirds Vol 1 - Wading Birds - A Ken Gilliland Creation at HiveWire 3D

Songbird ReMix Shorebirds Vol 2 - Herons & Bitterns - A Ken Gilliland Creation at HiveWire 3D

Songbird ReMix Shorebirds Vol 3 - Small Waders - A Ken Gilliland Creation at HiveWire 3D

 

[Ken Gilliland]

Why birds and nature matter...

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, as vital to our lives as water and bread."
—- Edward Abbey

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike."
-- John Muir, The Yosemite (1912)

"Birds make any place a chance for discovery, they make a garden seem wild, they are a little bit of wilderness coming into a city park, and for a bird watcher every walk is filled with anticipation. What feathered jewel might drop out of the sky next?"
—David Sibley, Author

"Birds are important because they keep systems in balance: they pollinate plants, disperse seeds, scavenge carcasses and recycle nutrients back into the earth. But they also feed our spirits, marking for us the passage of the seasons, moving us to create art and poetry, inspiring us to flight and reminding us that we are not only on, but of, this earth."
—Melanie Driscoll, Director of bird conservation for the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi Flyway

"Why do birds matter? It’s a funny question. Imagine asking a cardinal, “Why do humans matter?” He would sing if he could, from the top of a telephone pole, “They don’t! Not at all! Look at me!” Every species basically thinks we’re the real one, and all others are food or set decoration. If you could step back and register all our noise at once, you might get a glimpse of the real deal: life on earth." —Barbara Kingsolver, Author, Flight Behavior

Living near nature could prolong your life - CNN

 

[sandman_max]

I already have Shorebirdss 1-3 and look forward to testing out the upgrades. But I'm not seeing Volume 4 yet. When will it be available?

 

[Ken Gilliland]

It should arrive soon, fingers crossed for Tuesday. I ran across a couple small issues that needed to be corrected this weekend. This issue does apply to the DAZ Studio version of Shorebirds v1 and v2, so everyone will need to download those again when they are ready.

Apart from me causing delays finding picky issues, I've managed to overwork the poor Hivewire3D QAV team by dumping a 150 birds (x4 render versions) on them. That takes some time to properly check. The end result will be that some of the updates will be staggered through the sale which ends on May 7th. This isn't a bad thing because it gives me something new to introduce throughout the sale.

Today's Bird Facts and Quotes...

• There are over 10,000 different bird species in the world. Songbird ReMix has recreated a little over 1,000 of them-- we have a ways to go still
• About 85 million Americans enjoy observing, photographing or feeding wild birds. That means about 1 in 4 Americans are birders. (National Survey on Recreation and the Environment by the USDA's Forest Service 2013).
• 56% of US "Birders" are women (USFWS 2011)
  
• In the United States, Vermont has the most enthusiastic birding population at 39%; Hawai'i is the lowest with 9%. The average is about 24%. (USFWS 2011)
• 1 in 5 Canadians are "Birders", spending an average of 133 days in a year on the activity. That’s more time than is spent on any other nature activity — including gardening, which people dedicate more than 70 days a year to, on average. (Canadian Nature Survey 2010).

Why Birds Matter...
"When life becomes heavy and worries pull me down like gravity, I simply look up and suddenly there, in the weightless free air, soaring like kites, flitting from branch to branch, unencumbered, my friends the birds release my soul and I am again free." —Carl Schreiner, Eagle, Nebraska

 

[Ken Gilliland]

For those not too familiar with my Songbird ReMix website, I do have a Bird Encyclopedia that has almost every bird I've done in Songbird ReMix format, information about it and where to find it.

For example, after reading this cool article about Dark-eyed Juncos maybe you got inspired to do a 3D scene with them-- but what set are they in? Go to the Bird Encyclopedia and search "Junco" and you'll find this entry. Go to the bottom of the screen and you'll find that it's a Free Download. Sorry, the free download hyperlinks are broken (because I've totally changed my downloads section-- I'll be fixing this when I get some time), but you know it's a free download and all my freebies are in my Store pages. By going to the main Store page and selecting Songbird ReMix, you'll find where I've moved the downloads to. Click the "Downloads: click for List" caret in the Songbird ReMix Base section and you'll see a ton of free birds. This store section also hold links to all my online manuals, the last date a set was updated and even promo movies.

"Birds have always been are our biological barometers. From the ‘canary in the coal mine’ to weather predictions, documentation of climate change, monitoring habitat health, urban noise, and the introduction of spring. Birds are ‘man’s next best friend.’ "

—Carla Dove, Forensic ornithologist, Smithsonian Institute

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[DanaTA]

We get the Slate Colored Dark-Eyed Junco variety here where I live. It doesn't seem to be within that blue range on the map they show, but they've been here as long as I've lived here. We moved to his house in 2001. Before, we lived in a city and didn't see much variety in birds. I was so amazed by the variety I get here. Though the Dark-Eyed Junco is described as ground feeders, I see them up on my feeder sometimes. Mostly on the ground, though. I ran out of seed and can't afford much. But it's the warm season now, and the Common Grackles are back. They swarm the feeder and wipe it out in a day or two, and the nicer, small, birds are afraid to approach. I have a triple tube feeder which supposedly holds 20 pounds of seed. I can't afford to keep filling that every two or three days. And squirrels got up there and ruined a few feed things, and so I've moved the good ones to two tubes and one is no longer useful. I have a better baffle now, so the squirrels can't get up there. I used to feed the squirrels so they'd stay away from the bird feeder, but shelled peanuts are too expensive now.

Dana

 

[Ken Gilliland]

We get both the slate and pink-sided seasonally here. Both left last week with all the white-crowned sparrows to summer in the Pacific Northwest. We're lucky enough to live in an area (just outside Los Angeles) that still has some wild land nearby, so we get a sizeable variety of birds. With our acquisition of neighboring vacant lots (to keep them from development) we have a 30,000+ sq ft native plant garden and many water features. Both the native plants and water help to add to our species count. Before the native plants we got about 50 different species of birds (which is still fairly impressive for LA) but after 15 years of native plants and my stream and pond project, we have 109 species that show up. Audubon California refers to our properties as an "Eco-tone", an oasis that has been popular on the Pacific Flyway. I guess we're one of the five star places to stay on the migration path. And, yes, I embarrassed to say we go through as much seed in a week as most people use in a couple months. I do buy it in bulk. My recommendations for seed; black oil sunflower is the coin of the bird realm here. I also use Kaytee Wild Finches (it has the least 'junk' seed) and Niger/Thistle (which singularly attracts goldfinches).

There are a couple videos I have on my website. One gives a small sampling of the birds we do get and the other is a documentary from the USC Film School with me talking about Native Gardens and Birds.

Cool Stuff about Birds...
Listen to the Sweet, Soft Warble Common Ravens Sing to Their Partners
How to Tell a Raven From a Crow

"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

[Flint_Hawk]

All of your white-crowned sparrows came to our feeders Ken!

 

[DanaTA]

When I can afford it, I put out songbird mix seed. It has sunflower seed, but other kinds, too. And they birds eat it up. I also have thistle feeder, but haven't seen birds coming to if very often. I wonder if the seed is too old. It was in the little galvanized barrel with the lid, but for a couple years. I don't know. It didn't get wet, but maybe it's just too old and they don't like it. When they did, it wasn't just American Goldfinch that fed on it...Black-Capped Chickadees liked it sometimes, House Finches, too. Even House Sparrows sometimes. And the squirrels. I used to have one that had a plastic tube with tiny slit holes. But the squirrels damaged it, chewing at it and eating the seed. Then it would just pour out. Now I have one with metal mesh.

Do you think the seed may be too old for their liking?

Dana

 

[Ken Gilliland]

It's possible although sometimes it just takes a while for the birds to figure out they can get seed through that mesh. We took ours down for a couple months then relocated it near a popular feeder. Even though the feeder was within arms distance of the one that was getting heavy use, it took one smart goldfinch to figure out you could get seed through that mesh, then the crowd followed.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

All of your white-crowned sparrows came to our feeders Ken!

I'm jealous... I miss their song every morning... it's one of my favorite birdsongs.

 

[Flint_Hawk]

They really are beautiful singers!

There's also a nearly white Eurasian Colored Dove again this year! I love seeing her!

 

[Ken Gilliland]

Cornell Labs of Ornithology just announced their participation in a feature length documentary about the Philippine Eagle (which is found in my Birds of Prey: Eagle of the World set and graces the main promo art). It's a beautiful eagle that is at great peril of going extinct with under 1,000 left in the wild.

Bird Facts and Quotes...

For many states within the US, and countries around the world, wildlife tourism is their top economic producer. Damaging environmental protections will end up damage economies... In the United States, 69% of Wyoming and Alaska's tourism comes from Birders. 73% of Hawaiian visits are birders in search of seeing Hawaii's rapidly declining endemic bird populations. Other states that count on birders include: Florida 25%, New Hampshire 45%, Vermont 31%, Utah 31%, Maine 63%, Montana 40% and New Hampshire 45%. Only 20% of the US State economies don't count on Birders. (USFWS 2011)

Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees
-- Revelation 7:3

Only after the last tree has been cut down.
Only after the last river has been poisoned.
Only after the last fish has been caught.
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
-- Native American Cree Prophecy

 

[DanaTA]

I'm afraid the Cree Prophecy may be close to fulfillment, the way things are going in this country.

Dana

 

[Ken Gilliland]

We're now into the final stretch of my Audubon's Birthday Sale. For those of you who haven't noticed Shorebirds v4 appeared in the store yesterday. It adds 4 new cranes to the SBRM library as well as more herons, egrets, spoonbills, storks and ibises.

Cornell labs posted a great video of a Red-tailed Hawk hatching.

Today's Bird Facts and Quotes:

"If you take care of the birds, you take care of most of the big problems of the world"
​

-Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, Science & Policy, George Mason University​

Money Talks:

• 40.5 million people in the US buy wild bird seed and feed birds at some time during the year. $3.22 billion was spent on bird seed and $1.8 billion on bird feeders. (USA & Canada Wild Bird Feeding Industry Benchmark Research 2013)

• 8.4 million people in Canada buy wild bird seed and feed birds at some time during the year. $790 million was spent on bird seed and $360 million on bird feeders. (USA & Canada Wild Bird Feeding Industry Benchmark Research 2013)

• About 45 million people (75% of the population) in Britain provide food for birds at some point during the year.
• US Birders spent an estimated $15 billion on the birding trips (food, lodging, transportation) and $26 billion on their birding equipment (cameras, binoculars, scopes). The trip and equipment expenditures of $41 billion in 2011 generated $107 billion in total industry output across the United States and created 666,000 jobs. Total industry output includes the direct, indirect, and induced effects of the expenditures associated with bird watching. It also created $13 billion dollars in federal and state tax revenues and $31.3 billion in income revenues (USFWS 2011)
• The combined value of 17 different ecosystem services that birds provide (such as pollination and water catchment) is estimated between $16- 54 trillion per year worldwide. This is around double what all the worlds economies make together. Without birds, we'd have to pay for these "free" services ourselves... so protecting birds actually saves us all money.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

We're now in the final stretch of my sale (ending on the 7th at midnight MST) and today's headline, while foreboding, seems appropriate to the theme of my birds and critter products...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/clim...ction-un-panel-says-humans-will-suffer-result

Part of the reason I create these products is to give artists the tools to create images that can make the viewers of the art aware, maybe care and be willing to do something. Creating art that depicts bird or other wildlife might be enough to get someone out of the house and give them to desire to see it for real.

Another thing we can all do is plant native plants. Native plants attract native insects which in turn attract wildlife. Building little oasis-es in our gardens might be the best workable solution to the continuing fragmentation of wild areas. Our bird species count went from about 50 different types to 109 after planting natives. To find out what native plants will work in your garden use this tool.

Today's Bird Facts and Quotes:

• Birding is the second most popular hobby/pastime worldwide, only surpassed by gardening.
• The most common symbol found on any form of currency is a type of bird
• The first recorded bird protection law was past in Ancient Egypt by Pharaoh Psammetich I. The Pharaoh protected the Egyptian Vulture (on pain of death) because he realized the importance of vultures cleaning up carrion that often caused disease outbreaks. The Egyptian populous referred to the vulture, after the law was passed, as "Pharaoh's Chicken."
• The first United States law passed to protect birds was after the public outcry of the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet going extinct in 1914. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 still stands today despite numerous attempts by conservative fractions to abolish or defund it. The statute makes it unlawful without a waiver to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill or sell birds listed therein ("migratory birds"). The statute does not discriminate between live or dead birds and also grants full protection to any bird parts including feathers, eggs and nests. Over 800 species are currently on the list.
• Over half of the known endemic bird species on Hawai’i evolved from the house finch.

"There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness."
--George Washington, address to Congress (1790)

"Yet I also appreciate that we cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well—for we will not fight to save what we do not love (but only appreciate in some abstract sense). So let them all continue—the films, the books, the television programs, the zoos, the little half acre of ecological preserve in any community, the primary school lessons, the museum demonstrations, even […] the 6:00 A.M. bird walks. Let them continue and expand because we must have visceral contact in order to love. We really must make room for nature in our hearts." --S.J. Gould

 

[Ken Gilliland]

Today, May 7th is the last day of my Audubon's Birthday sale ending at 12 midnight MST.

Thank-you to all of you who have participated and helped saved some endangered Tri-colored Blackbirds. Your support means a lot to me and Audubon.

Now, with your new birds and NW's critters, do some renders, share them and the information in my field guides, and hopefully, that will inspire others to move forward to care and help save biodiversity, the environment and our planet.


"Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts." --Edward R. Murrow

"Birds have shown us we’re not gravity’s slave, that flight is possible and limitless." —Wes Craven