"Warden of the Riverlands" – Natural History Display by Chris Lee

Beneath the curvature of an acrylic cloche, a beaver skull rests in solemn grace—its teeth, worn but resolute, a testament to the relentless sculptor of woodland rivers. The skull is nestled among fragments of its own legacy: real beaver-chewed stumps, their soft wood notched with bite marks, artifacts of labor and instinct.

Above and around this central relic, life takes ephemeral form. An emerald darner dragonfly, with glistening wings and a piercing green thorax, hovers in frozen motion—its placement suggesting the swift glides once taken above mossy waters. Nearby, the blinded sphinx moth clings silently, its muted wings whispering camouflage, mystery, and stillness. Together, they embody the balance between motion and rest, survival and surrender.

The scene is grounded in earth itself—lush green mosses, hand-collected stone, and woodland fragments weave through the base like memory made physical. The materials cradle the composition with quiet reverence, echoing the cycles of growth, death, and regeneration that define the wild places where beavers shape banks and insects flit through twilight.

Created by Chris Lee, this display is more than a collection—it's a monument to hidden industry, nocturnal stillness, and the forgotten poetry of wetlands. A work of natural art, composed by hand and spirit, it invites the viewer into a world just beneath the surface of the familiar.