Bennie ansell pintail
This month’s Collector’s Shelf highlights a bird from the Tinkham Collection. It is a Bennie Ansell Pintail used at the famed Flyway Club. Bennie was a market hunter, guide and caretaker at the hunt club. It is a rare decoy because most Flyway Club decoys were burned up in the 1958 fire that destroyed the main building. The building was rebuilt in 1961 by the original owner’s son Ogden R. Reid. The Flyway Club is still in its original design and original location on the mainland of Currituck sound. The privately owned hunting lodge was built in 1920 by Ogden M. Reid, owner and editor of The New York Herald Tribune. The lodge overlooks the Currituck Sound where it meets the North Landing River. The Flyway is now owned by Ogden R. Reid family of New York. Reid was publisher of the former New York Herald Tribune and the ambassador to Israel during the John F. Kennedy administration. For more information about the Flyway Club you can go to this link: The Flyway Club, Knotts Island, Currituck, NC – Bing video.
