Duck decoy (model)

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Man-made object resembling a real duck

title: "Duck decoy (model)" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["folk-art", "woodcarving", "ducks", "hunting-equipment", "decoys"] description: "Man-made object resembling a real duck" topic_path: "general/folk-art" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_decoy_(model)" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Man-made object resembling a real duck ::

::callout[type=note] the carved wildfowl model ::

History

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Lovelock_Cave_decoy_Autry.jpg" caption="A prehistoric duck decoy found by archaeologists in [[Lovelock Cave]] in Nevada"] ::

The earliest known use of duck decoys was by ancient Egyptians, who used decoys made of clay on the Nile to hunt ducks and geese around 2500 BCE. Decoy ducks have been used in traditional hunting by Indigenous Australian peoples of the Murray River in South Australia. Native American people have been crafting and using duck decoys for thousands of years. Archaeologists discovered several decoys made from tule plants and duck feathers, dating to about 300-100 BCE in Lovelock Cave near Lovelock, Nevada. Many modern tribes have traditions of decoy crafting. Cree people traditionally make goose decoys out of tamarack twigs.

Wooden carved decoys arose in North America in the 19th and 20th centuries. After World War II, manufacturers began to make decoys out of papier-mâché and eventually plastic, and battery-powered moving decoys gained popularity in the 1990s.

Use in hunting

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Decoy_(PSF).png" caption="An illustration of a duck decoy attracting real ducks"] ::

Decoys are used in duck hunting to attract wild ducks to an area of water by giving the impression that other ducks are comfortably resting in the area, creating a false sense of safety in numbers. Decoys are made in different forms designed to mimic different activities of ducks, including "feeders" and "sleepers". Decoys are weighted to keep them anchored in place when floating.

Duck decoys may be colored to have a natural appearance, or they may be entirely black, as black decoys are more easily visible to passing ducks on overcast days. Hunters may also use decoys of different types of waterfowl such as coots and geese. In goose hunting, two-dimensional images of geese similar to standees are occasionally used because they are less expensive and less bulky than three-dimensional decoys.

Some modern decoys use electric batteries to move, which creates waves in the water, adding a sense of realism that may fool ducks better. One of the most popular forms of motion decoys is one that has spinning wings, creating the illusion of a duck flapping wings. Hunters may also create the illusion of movement without battery-powered decoys by using jerk-rigs, which are tethered with bungee cord and allow hunters to move decoys manually while inside their hunting blind.

As collectible art

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Black_duck_decoy_by_Cigar_Daisey_01.jpg" caption="A duck decoy created by [[Delbert Daisey"] ::

Ever since Joel Barber, the first known decoy collector, started in 1918, decoys have become increasingly viewed as an important form of North American folk art. Barber's book Wild Fowl Decoys was the first book on decoys as collectible objects. It was followed in 1965 by folk art dealer Adele Earnest's The Art of the Decoy and American Bird Decoys by collector Wm. F. Mackey. Collectors typically focus on particular categories of decoys, such as working, decorative, antique, or contemporary. In addition, collectors may focus on decoys from particular regions such as eastern North America, Louisiana, California, or the Upper Mississippi Flyway, which all have unique decoy-carving traditions.

In 2007, a red-breasted merganser hen decoy created by Lothrop Holmes sold at auction for $856,000. At the time, it was one of the highest prices ever paid for a duck decoy. The first million-dollar price was achieved when two decoys (a Canada goose decoy and a preening Northern pintail drake decoy) created by A. Elmer Crowell were sold for $1.13 million each in a private sale in September 2007.

References

References

  1. Ballard, Doris. (1984-05-27). "ANTIQUES; THE ART OF THE DECOY CARVER". The New York Times.
  2. (1989). "Commercial Utilization of Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides, Cuppressaceae)". Economic Botany.
  3. "The History Of The Waterfowl Decoy".
  4. (2022-10-11). "Decoy ducks land among First Nations owners after long stint in United States museum". ABC News.
  5. Tuohy, Donald R., and L. Kyle Napton. (1986). "Duck Decoys from Lovelock Cave, Nevada, Dated by 14C Accelerator Mass Spectrometry". ''American Antiquity'': 51(4), pp. 81–816.
  6. "Duck Decoys - Infinity of Nations".
  7. "Native American Duck Decoys - NativeTech".
  8. "Cree Tamarack Geese or Tamarack Goose Decoy".
  9. "NativeTech: Tamarack - Tamarack Stick Goose Decoys".
  10. (2022-04-25). "Antique Duck Decoy: A Collector's Guide To Identification And Evaluation - VIP Art Fair".
  11. Rearick, David. (11 December 2015). "The History Of Duck Decoys".
  12. Neal, Jerry L.. (2018-12-27). "Duck Decoy Basics".
  13. Bauserman, Jace. (2022-04-08). "Do Silhouette Goose Decoys Really Work?".
  14. Hetherington, Jennifer. (2021-12-26). "Silhouette decoys: Everything you need to know".
  15. "Collecting Decoys: Getting Started {{!}} North American Decoy Collectors Association".
  16. "Decoy Collecting Tips {{!}} Ducks Unlimited".
  17. "Bids for the birds - San Diego Union Tribune".
  18. (2007-09-21). "To tune of $1.13m, decoys are the real thing". The Boston Globe.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

folk-artwoodcarvingduckshunting-equipmentdecoys