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ATTLEBORO

The brightly-colored male goldfinch's beak is poised above a shock of spiky purple thistle.

Elsewhere in Ray Tameo's basement workshop is an Eastern meadowlark with its beak to the air. There's also an Arctic tern and then, a male red-winged blackbird in spring, with its wings fluffed to attract a mate.

These birds don't need to be caged. They're Tameo's life-like carvings, examples of the type of work the self-taught wildlife artist has produced over the past 18 years.

Tameo was among 25 wildlife carvers who recently gathered to display their work at the sixth annual Bird and Wildlife Carving Exposition at the Audubon Society of Rhode Island's Environmental Education Center. The artists came from New York and as far away as Canada for the special show. Tameo, a semi-retired civil engineer, said his work reflects a life-long fascination with wildlife, starting as a youth exploring marshlands and nurtured through fishing and hunting.

He started carving birds, then moved on to decoys and then alighted on his current passion, songbirds.

He has exhibited his works at other venues, including the Moose Hill Sanctuary in Sharon this past May.

There's no mass production of his work. It can take up to 150 hours to carve one bird, say a cardinal or a chickadee. Carving a bird in a position of flight "is worse," he said. "It takes three-times more work because of the underwings."

With that time investment, "You get so locked into it, it becomes part of you," Tameo said.

His models are taxidermy birds and pictures in bird books as well as ones he takes himself of the winged creatures. "I also have bird feeders coming out of my ears."

Each bird, unless otherwise requested, is to scale. Except the loons. "Loons are one of the best you can do, but they are large, so I do three-quarter size," he said. "They get too big, where you going to put them?"

The woodcock, an upland game bird, is among his favorites, along with the red-winged blackbird.

He starts from scratch - a block of tupelo, the soft wood of a tree common to Louisiana. It's relief-carved, which will influence the final product. "The attitude is very important - what you want it to look like," Tameo said.

There's the smooth grinding and then the detail of wings and tail feathers. A burning iron is used to create details like creases in the wings. Unlike many others who use oil-based paint, Tameo uses acrylics. "It dries faster and I do it in washes," seven or eight coats, he said.

The artist also paints and has captured on canvas places of interest and classic homes, such as the old homestead from Emily Bronte's novel "Wuthering Heights." His painting of a farm scene with a red-winged blackbird swaying on a cattail took first place in Sharon's art festival. His painting of the Summer Street stone arch bridge is on display in the Carpenter Museum in Rehoboth.

Tameo tries to place birds, whether in paint or in wood, in their natural habitat. He creates natural-looking pedestals for the birds. A recently completed indigo bunting, in hues of blue, purple and black, is perched on barbed wire wound around an old cedar post. The spiky thistle attracting the goldfinch is carved from wood, along with a second, closed blossom below it. Tameo fashioned long blades of grass from green, lightweight steel.

He recently received a commission from a man who wants five shore birds for his Poppasquash, R.I. home.

Tameo said he has started the project, "but I don't want to work under pressure, you lose quality."

He typically carves 10 birds a year.

"We'll do one at a time and see where we go from there," Tameo said.

SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at 508-236-0398 or at slahoud@thesunchronicle.com.