I am not sure but I saw it here. I think it had to be 15 plus years ago. I found it quite funny and it really seemed to fit the ducks on my 12 GHE ! It sounded like a term Ed Muderlak might have coined though I cannot be sure if that is a certainty. Best, Paul
PS I do still like all of the Parker ducks.

You're right Paul - it was most definitely ol' EDM hisself.

In fact, I think he made that reference in his book "Parker Guns, The Old Reliable"




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Let's not forget the "three dog" DHs. I'm partial to them. They seem to appear on very early hammerless D grade guns. This is from a 1 frame, 32 inch DH made in 1889. Of course, it's a Gordon Setter.

Are these the “flying turnips”, or in this case “standing turnips”? Thoughts on what game birds they were meant to be?

They look like walking clamshells.
Probably meant to be quail of some sort.

The term coined by the late Ed Muderlak, flying turnips, was made in reference to the exceptionally plump ducks in flight.






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Dean:

I know we can’t interview these engravers. But what do you think was the thought-process behind these blueprinted “game-bird” designs?

Deliberate offbeat stylization; an artist’s quip; comic relief within the confines of a strict framework of manufacturing consistency and quality control?

The sometimes odd-looking birds we see are primarily on Grade 2 guns and where the engraving needed to be very simple and this work on these lower grades were necessarily done byvapprentices and journeymen in the field. No artistic impression was required or even necessary to a large degree.
Grade 3 Parkers are where we begin to see some very nice artistic expression which was necessary to depict more realistic dogs requiring the hand of more experienced engravers.






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Guineafowl. Shoot them in your back yard when you get tired of their noise. As close as one can get. Someone had a photo of the wrong bird in front of them when they started engraving and like "lemmings off a cliff "everyone followed along. Maybe the first engraver of these looked out the window at a flock of them and thought good enough. Take a look! We call them Gennies here in the South.

Were guinea fowl ever a wild bird in this country?





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Heath hens possibly?