INDIANA ARTIST WINS CT DUCK STAMP CONTEST, AGAIN, WITH BUFFLEHEADS AT BARN ISLAND

An Indiana artist whose painting of three geese flying over New London Harbor Light won the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s annual Migratory Bird Conservation Stamp Art Contest in 2015 has won again, this time with an image of buffleheads flying across Barn Island Wildlife Management Area in Stonington.

Jeffrey Klinefelter’s painting of the small sea ducks, named after the buffalo-like shape of their heads, will appear on the 2019 version of the stamps that waterfowl hunters are required to purchase with their licenses and also are sold to collectors and the general public to fund preservation, conservation and management of wetlands and other habitat for ducks, geese and other water birds.

Klinefelter won the contest in 2015 with a painting of three American brant geese flying over New London Harbor Light that appeared on the 2016 duck stamp.

His 2018 entry was the winner among 29 entries that artists submitted to DEEP, including 18 from Connecticut artists. A picture of a pair of Canada geese in the Connecticut River, painted by Colchester artist Melissa Barker, placed second.

The Connecticut duck stamp program, modeled after a similar federal program, has generated more than $1.6 million for habitat work in the state, and has been used to leverage matching grants to generate more than $4 million for wildlife conservation projects.

The stamps cost $17. Hunters and nonhunters alike can buy them in late November or early December where hunting and fishing licenses are sold, including municipal clerks’ offices, retail hunting stores, DEEP’s offices in Hartford and through DEEP’s online Sportsmen’s Licensing System. The stamps also can be purchased by mail, and prints of the paintings are available through the DEEP Wildlife Division.

Original versions of the first, second and third-place winning entries will be on display on weekdays through the end of September at the DEEP Wildlife Division’s Sessions Woods Conservation Education Center in Burlington.