Maine’s Hawk Beaked, and Beaver Tailed Fishing Machine
We always seem to have fun with the North American lumberjack’s beasts, hopefully given this assemblage of wacky parts the Billdad will be no exception!
Famed for frequenting the reeds of the backwater marshes and ponds of Maine, the billdad is a beast made for annihilating fish and their water born brethren! It’s equipped with the body of an otter, the head (or at least beak) of a hawk, webbed feet, a beaver’s tail and kangaroo like back legs that allow it to jump ridiculously high (60 feet say the lumberjacks). It’s attack is said to involve some sort of crazy acrobatic leap from shore, at some point slapping its enormous flat tail upon the water to knock the targeted fishy dinner silly and somehow somersaulting midair, using it’s beak to snatch the recently sillified fish. Now maybe he doesn’t flip, maybe he swims out leisurely and this is where his duck-like webbed feet come into play… I’ll leave that to you. In the meantime, here’s you official bullet point descriptors
- Lives in Maine
- Body approximately the same size as an otter
- Has enormous Kangaroo like hind legs that end in webbed feet
- Its forelegs are kinda diminutive and dinosaury
- Head or at least the beak of a hawk or similar predatory fowl
- Large flat tail much like a beaver’s
- Super good at fishing in a somewhat dramatic fashion
We had multiple judges this time around, as I was hanging with the family and my three nieces on Saturday (the sum of their age’s is barely 10). It took a moment to get them settled into the task… but i think we have a solid call and pretty good reasoning to boot!
Judge’s favorite is #3 – the one with no eyyyyyeeezzzz!
So we rolled through each of the pics first as a qualifying round. Then a secondary which do you like best and why. I was amazed by the haste in which some of our favorites were dismissed. Itnet’s was simply “Too green” Garvey’s was dismissed as “…just an oooowl!” possible I screwed up #13s chances as i didn’t immediately know if the Billdad won its jumping contest with that jump. I also learned they hate duck boots, if you’re going to say “otter” on your drawing… there better damn well be an otter or the kids loose it, they don’t quite get regional humor and really I’m just voting that this group was young enough to not want words in their pics at all! All that being said here’s a brief roundup of some of the reasons why Cate wins this round!
“Cause it’s got nooooo eyyyezzzzz!” (that was a big, big deal), “Why’s it only have two fingers? I like it but that’s just silly… two fingers… jeeez!”, “That feather makes no sense… but its so pretty?”, “Do you like the pretty feather? Do you think he smells bad?… like fish?” “Yeah fish smells ewww… But at least its a pretty fish?”
So there you have it a perfectly reasoned decision! Congratulations Cate!
There you go! Fight it as long as you wish but know the judges’ word is law. And even though the contest is done, we’ll always welcome new Billdad drawings for the archives! So draw on! Remember, 25 beasts drawn earns you a shirt!
