This Birding Life: Sophie Webb

There's a new episode of my podcast "This Birding Life" all about the fascinating and talented author/artist/ornithologist Sophie Webb, a Renaissance woman if ever there were one. This new episode (which is episode #30! Wow!) is titled Sophie Webb: Life at Sea.

An illustration from one of Sophie's children's books about the ocean.

In it Sophie talks about her early years as a budding artist/naturalist, the creation of A Field Guide to Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America with Steve Howell, her field research projects all over the world, and her series of best-selling, award-winning children's books.

Sophie Webb's name is familiar to birders who have used her Mexico Birds field guide.

The enhanced audio version (with images) of this episode is visually stunning, illustrated with many of Sophie's paintings, field sketches, and photographs. Here are a just a few:

A plate of parrots and macaws from the Mexico guide.

Sophie is the author of several best-selling nature books for children.

Painting in Antarctica.

Painting aboard the MacArthur II in the Pacific.

Field sketching in an Adelie penguin colony in Antarctica.

A painting of Adelie penguins.

Jumping Adelie penguin.

A feeding aggregation in the Pacific.

Field painting of a tawny-throated leaftosser in Bolivia.

As with all episodes of "This Birding Life" the files are offered as free downloads at Podcast Central and in the iTunes Podcasts section. Both mp3 (audio only) and M4v (enhanced audio illustrated with still images) are available.

"This Birding Life" is sponsored by eBWD, the digital edition of Bird Watcher's Digest. All subscribers to the print edition of Bird Watcher's Digest automatically get free access to the digital edition (!), which is enhanced with photo galleries, videos, audio files, and hotlinks to all kinds of great, informative websites.

I hope you enjoy this new episode of TBL. If you do (or don't) please share your comments here via my blog. I'd love to hear from you.

Happy listening!

The Bird Fair Mural

During the Bird Fair many of the artists who are here displaying and selling their work participate in the Great Mural Project. They each paint a bird or something on the giant mural, which has had a background painted in. The mural is reproduced on cards, which are sold to raise money for conservation. When the mural depicts the birds of a specific region, ecosystem, or country, it is donated to that place to be used as a fundraiser and to be displayed to raise awareness.

This year's mural depicted the birds of Rutland Water, the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust reserve where the Bird Fair is held each year. Here are a few images of the mural being painted over the weekend.

The first few birds are painted in on the mural.

And then a few more artists add their contributions.

And a few more....


Soon the mural begins to look like a more complete work.


Chris Rose working on his grebe for the mural, mixing colors, adding shadows on the water.

Darren Rees added a peregrine falcon zooming upward over the scene.

It's a nice diversion from the Bird Fair to watch the artists create birds on the mural. At times there are three or four birds being painted by as many artists. The mural is just one of many things that make this event so interesting, successful, and world famous.

BWD Cover Sneak Preview

BWD's current cover is a painting of red knots by Louise Zemaitis.

If you'd like to know in advance what the next cover of Bird Watcher's Digest will look like, step on over to Drawing the Motmot, the fascinating blog by Debby Kaspari. I've known Debby for nearly 20 years—since her days as a jewelry designer and lead banjo picker for the All Girl Boys in the SF Bay Area of California. She plucked under the nom-de-tune of Debby Cotter then.

Debby is a mutli-talented artist and has lent her work to the cover of BWD numerous times. Her post about creating the May/June 2008 cover painting for the magazine can be found right here.