A Merganser in the Making

I roughed out a merganser decoy today. As I previously posted, I had some wood from my mother-in-law's property which I decided to use for my carvings. I finally got to use my shaving bench. I roughed in the body with power tools and the draw knife. I saw a picture of an old merganser decoy on the Internet which I used as a pattern for the head. I roughed out the head from a piece of 2" pine board. Like the primitive decoys I saw at St. Mary's City, I left some of the bark on the body to give texture to the wing feathers. The wood in the body is very green. I will have to it dry out before I can take this project any further. Once the body dries out, I will mortise a slot in it for the head, and then jump into the shaping of the body and the carving of the head. I will report back in a few months . . .