Featured Artist

I first met Tony Henneberg in 1993 when he was an artist in residence at Mashomack in Pine Plains, NY. His sometimes-life-sized watercolors stand alone as majestically as the subject he has chosen. I caught up with Henneberg in his Pine Plains studio to discuss his current season’s mycology work; given this unusually arid fall, I was curious about woodland changes and how the shifting environment may impact the places where he works and ultimately his own work. 

Born in Germany, Henneberg and his family moved to his grandfather’s remote farm in Zimbabwe when he was five. This unique exposure to wildlife instilled a love of the outdoors, an abiding interest in habitats, and a passion for birds. Henneberg has continued this interest by unraveling each place, walking through local woods or remote areas, and constantly listening to the bird calls around him. To our untrained ears, this language is often hard to decipher, but it tells him who and what is nearby as the fauna and birdlife navigate their spaces. 

He has spent many years observing birds worldwide in their natural habitats, painting angles that show their character and plumage to their full potential and bringing a narrative to these images. Working in oil and watercolor, his touch on the surface is light, akin to his footprint when walking. Always keen to observe rather than be observed, Henneberg is often behind the camera.

Can you remember how old you were when you first started painting?

I still have the early sketchbooks from when I was eight, living on a farm in Zimbabwe. My mother and her father were also painters. My grandfather was incredibly fastidious about the quality of lightfastness in his paint. He tested every new cake of paint, even Windsor and Newton, leaving test papers on the metal roof for months and disposing of fugitive paint.

What motivated you to study mushrooms?

Initially, when I was wandering and listening to an area, looking for an exciting interaction to work from, I often found morels and hen of the woods, which came home for supper. About seven years ago, after an impressive mushroom season, I started observing the mushrooms more closely, seeing them in a different light. Bringing the mushrooms to the studio, I learned to identify and paint them, uncovering their nature. This process snowballed, becoming more absorbing. I actively looked for mushrooms, figuring out each species and writing notes of the day and the environment the mushrooms were growing in directly onto the paintings in pencil. 

This year was a reasonable season with some rain, and there were fungi in spring and mid-summer; however, this fall, the ongoing months of dry weather have depleted the fungi, which will have a knock-on effect on the woods and wildlife. There are no mushrooms to photograph or work from. In contrast, last year, I worked on about 60 mushroom paintings.

Yes, I have noticed a lack of fresh mushrooms. Some older turkey tails are attached to tree trunks, but nothing is underfoot or on fallen logs. Will they wait until the conditions change and emerge?

Most mushrooms have a relationship with the earth, either wood or mycelium. Mycelia are the threads that make up the actual mushroom, the things we see are the fruiting bodies, so fungal species are associated with certain trees, live or decomposing, and some are associated with insects, turning them into zombies, becoming the food for the mycelia and from their remains, the fruiting body can emerge to set spores. Their spores are sent to another suitable substrate to thrive. There have been years when maitakes have come through dry spells, but I have not seen them either this season.

As you have observed the birds and catalogued the mushrooms here for years, do you feel the area has changed?

Yes, the grouse have declined. They prefer areas with various habitats and are most abundant in areas where logging, burning, or other disturbances have created early successional forests, which is not happening here. Woodcock have also moved; for years, we could often stand outside the house to hear and see the woodcock drumming. Nearby, I would cross the stream where there is an area of brush, and I could shine a flashlight on them, sadly not recently. I did flush one at Thompson Pond this year, but I am still waiting to hear a single woodcock. Today, there are multiple challenges for migratory birds. For example, electric light confuses them as they migrate at night.

Yes, window collisions are common, particularly in cities. I follow a Wild Bird Fund on Instagram that rehabilitates wildlife in NYC. So many species have been blown off track or impacted by window collisions and poisoning, and the woodcock is high on their rescue list. During migration season, the Fund often asks people to turn off their building lights at night.

I also think traffic is an underrated killer of many birds, plus seasonal weather patterns are shifting. Habitat loss is another factor; people transform wild lands into parkland planting, which destroys ecosystems, and by not letting succession come up, basically changing the woodland strata. Some birds need undergrowth, some prefer disturbed areas, and others prefer treetops and everything in between. Wildflowers also provide for insects, giving both food and seeds for birds and pollinators. When everything is grassed and mowed, that reduces their pantry. So, I feed my garden birds all year to encourage the rarer birds, like grosbeaks, to fatten up before their long journeys. It might be a flawed strategy, but maybe a couple more grosbeaks will make it to their winter grounds if they are fatter for the journey. If they struggle to find food due to habitat changes, they may embark on their journeys in weaker conditions.  

Back in 2020, during the pandemic, there was a prothonotary warbler in Buttercup Sanctuary; I had never seen one in this area. Maybe it was due to less traffic and people not traveling, or the weather blew it off track. These birds are typically found near the Central Flyway, further west and south of here. Ducks seem to have healthy numbers; once, unusually, there were scoters, a type of sea duck, on the pond at Mashomack. Those are more commonly found north on the Hudson, around the Finger Lakes, and on the coast. The mergansers were around with chicks in the spring and summer; I often see them when kayaking down the Roe Jan, where they breed in late spring and summer. I have yet to note a considerable change for ducks in the ponds and waterways.

In 2020, I was fixing the roof and doing various outside chores, and a barred owl sat and watched me for days, totally unfazed. I made an owl box to place nearby a couple of years ago. When I investigated the box, the barred owls had lined it with the fibrous underbark; they had a successful nesting, and I could observe their young growing up. 

November is an excellent time to put up owl boxes to encourage them to nest; they prefer woodland areas. I grew up with a tiny pearl spotted owl that flew around catching the moths at night, and it would fight with your shirt when it landed on you. We also found a damaged hornbill nest, so my mother placed it in a box, and the young were raised there by their parents. One of the young birds stayed with us; he would fly in any open window and land on our scrambled eggs. In the mornings, he was always watching at my window blind, and as soon as the hornbill detected I was awake, it would come flying into the bed!

Do you think there is less diversity of birds and trees in the woods today?

It is all changing. There are two sides to it. The grouse needs disturbed land, and if the land is left alone, then at some point, the succession stops because there’s no harvesting of the trees, and the other trees don’t have a chance to come up. Then the other problem here is that the trees are dying, the ash from emerald ash borer beetle and the chestnuts from the earlier Dutch elm disease, amongst many insect invasives, so succession will have less diversity, more maples and cherry. All these plant invasives including bittersweet and barberry are succeeding, which provide essentially impenetrable shelter for mice to hide from bobcats, foxes, coyotes, and owls who cannot access them. Barberry invasives increase an area’s exposure to Lyme diseases; as the mice thrive, the ticks increase as mice carry ticks through the woods. Reducing barberry is challenging as the seeds are viable for nine or eleven years. It can be tricky to manage; some say it’s quite easy to dig it up using a crowbar if you are strong, or you can cut it at the base and leave it in a pile to decompose. Keeping it in check will help keep ticks down and help the woodland.

I have a trail camera that tells me who is moving around in the area; it is set up near a beaver dam, where there is a fair amount of traffic from bears, deer, and bobcats. Some fallen trees are nearby, which causes the animals to pause, and I catch them on the camera. Now is also an excellent time to set up a camera, as we can easily see the trails.

Can you talk about your travels to remote deltas in Suriname? 

Yes, I have had several trips since 2006, including this year. You land in town, gather your supplies, and then head to where you want to go or where you can afford to have a plane drop you with your equipment. Usually, they are river trips. In 2019, I floated the Coppename River on my own, which was fantastic. This time, I stayed a month in one place, initially sleeping near the river, but it was too wet. So, I returned to a shed area, slung my hammock, and slept away from the elements. Setting up trail cameras is also fascinating, so I can film what is moving around the area.

I take in essential supplies, like rice, stock cubes, cooking oil, salt, vinegar, tins, Kool-Aid, and some rum. If you’re catching fish, it’s good to salt and vinegar immediately and cook them quickly; the fish can go off within an hour or two. My little boats do not have a cooler full of ice, so no martinis either, but the river water was delicious and fresh.

Do you work while you’re there or just experience the place?

I watch the wildlife in these remote yet diverse deltas in Suriname, record bird calls, and do photography and videography. Drawing and painting are tricky due to the humidity. When you’re working with watercolors, you can’t keep them dry. Even if you put the paper in a plastic bag, humidity makes everything rot. In Suriname, I can immerse myself in a remote place filled with diverse wildlife interactions. I can sit and watch all day and go where I want to; I am on my own time. I would also love to go to Patagonia, New Guinea, Indonesia, or back to Australia.

Henneberg’s work is tangible; you can almost hear the sounds around it and want to touch the mosses and bark. This sensorial experience of place comes through the work, only made possible by someone who spends as much time outside experiencing the land as inside his studio. So, off to the woods for me to cut back more barberry. I am missing the damp woodsy smells of autumn but filled with high hopes of a barred owl visiting the newly installed owl box in the near future. •

You can find more of Tony Henneberg’s work on Instagram, @tonyhenneberg, or on his website, tonyhenneberg.com. Henneberg has previously talked to Main Street. See mainstreetmag.com/tony-henneberg for further reading about his painting practice.