"Queen of the woods"

The Eurasian woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) is a migratory bird of the temperate forests of Europe and Asia. Nicknamed 'la reine des bois' by French hunters, it is renowned for the difficulty of shooting it in dense undergrowth. Its eyes, positioned far back on the head, give it near-total 360° vision. Its cryptic plumage — an interlace of browns, rusts, and blacks — renders it almost invisible in the forest litter.

The very close frontal view was chosen to render that eye — immense, round, placed very high on the skull — which looks at the viewer from the side of the head. This is the paradoxical anatomy of the woodcock: a bird one never sees, but which sees everything. The warm wash background and the vegetation sketched at the base of the image suffice to evoke the context. The meticulous precision of the plumage deliberately contrasts with the freedom of these backgrounds.