Bird-Carving Pair Blows Competition Out of the Water : Hobbies: Some people call Dick and Tallie Knoer of San Diego the best couple of shore bird carvers in the world.

Fourteen years ago, the Knoers--Dick, a 62-year-old dental technician who has carved most of his life, and Tallie, a homemaker who has painted most of hers--attended their first decoy-bird exhibition and competition in Los Angeles.

Tallie said she took a good look at the craftsmen as they patiently hand-carved and painted the handsome birds.

“I told my husband, ‘I think we can do this--you carve them and I’ll paint them,’ ” she said. About a year later, the couple entered their first competition.

“I hate to tell you this, but the first bird we entered in a show was pretty sad,” Tallie said. “But we kept it up.”

Since then, the Knoers’ shore bird replicas have taken them to Maine and back, winning them competitions in many of the states and making them friends in all of them. Although they have since stopped competing, the San Diego couple still attend exhibitions, where they sell many of their products, and are often asked to judge shore bird-replicating contests.

But it’s not the awards or the national reputation they’ve built that keep them attending up to five annual exhibitions all over the country.

“Meeting people is the reward,” Tallie said. “After you’ve done this for a few years, you get to know everyone at these shows. It’s like a little reunion each time.”

Dick beamed as he described the the treatment the couple has received while traveling--from Northern hospitality in Upstate New York to camaraderie among the Cajun carvers in the Louisiana bayous.

The Knoers say studying and replicating waterfowl wildlife have given the couple, who will celebrate their 32nd anniversary next month, an enjoyable way to spend much of their time together.

A walk through their Clairemont home, which resembles a giant, still-life bird sanctuary, shows how seriously they take their interest.

More than 100 decoy ducks and replicated shore birds adorn the walls of the living room, family room and den, or “bird room,” as Tallie calls it. Ducks swim in replica ponds, and shore birds stand on patches of driftwood or on heavy wooden blocks strewn with pebbles, sand and dirt mixed with paint that bring out the color of each bird’s plumage.

Vying for space on the Knoers’ walls and shelves are best-of-show awards, sketches of shore birds, collectors’ stamps, a 91-year-old duck decoy from the Acme Decoy Co. and replicas of such birds as snipes, knots, sandpipers and plovers.

Dick’s garage-workshop contains an old filing cabinet with shore bird patterns, a large band saw, lathe and other power tools--all a far cry from the small handsaw he used to carve decoys out of peach crates when he was 13, he said.

As sawdust flew through the garage, Dick fine-tuned one of his models and explained that some of the tools he uses to carve the finer bird features are the same ones he has used to perfect bridges and crowns during his 40 years as a dental technician.

“You try to put your own personality or style into everything you make,” he said.

Tallie agreed as she showed off her intricate plumage-painting techniques. Drawing on an assortment of more than 30 fine-tipped brushes, she varies the consistency of the paint with the angle and amount of pressure she puts on the brush. The different feathers--each of which requires its own technique--may look easy to duplicate, but are not, she says.

“There are a few husband-and-wife (carving) teams throughout the country, but very few of the quality as the Knoers,” said Marilyn Posluszny, a Carlsbad carver. “They’re probably the best pair of shore bird carvers in the world, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others.”

Posluszny said the couple’s sense of humor and time taken to explain their art to anyone interested in wildlife have encouraged others to take up the craft.

“Dick has a very distinctive carving style, and Tallie’s paintings, I think, are absolutely beautiful,” said Kent Thompson, an attorney who has purchased about 15 shore birds from the Knoers over the past 12 years. “Her washes and brush techniques are incredible.”

It was the Knoers’ distinctive style that led them to turn one familiar-looking bird upside-down while judging a Michigan competition seven years ago, Dick said. They reported the entrant to the organizer when they found their signatures painted over on the bottom of the bird, which the man had entered as his own.

“He ran out the door and just left his bird there,” Dick said.

Without the sale of their works, which yield $100 to $500 each, the Knoers couldn’t afford to travel the country five times a year to shows and exhibitions.

“It’s like singing for your supper,” Tallie said. “We work like a son of a gun to get enough birds sold to pay for these trips. Sometimes we do (sell them), sometimes we don’t.”