“Drawing is a great way to focus, to really force you to look closely at something. For me, drawing was a way of studying birds, a method. The art and the science are inextricably linked.”
David Sibley started drawing birds at age five and never stopped. Having an ornithologist father and being around his father’s friends, all of whom were also interested in birds, made birdwatching seem an ordinary thing all grown men did. “Roger Tory Peterson, the father of the modern field guide, lived about twenty miles away from us and I met him a few times when I was a kid,” David says. “He made a living writing field guides—it seemed to me it was just something people do. A normal career path I could choose.”
David went on to do exactly that. His books on how to identify birds and trees have sold over a million and a half copies because they’re so darned good. What makes them great is the detail of the illustrations and the voice that comes through in both text and pictures; you have the sense that the author isn’t trying to show off knowledge but really is trying to help you. Like a good teacher who demonstrates a few different ways to approach a math problem, Sibley field guides provide different views and numerous clues about what a bird might be. David understands that out in the field you won’t always see all of a bird at any one time—life is imperfect—and that’s okay.
How to find out more
David Sibley’s new book, “What It’s Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Singing–What Birds Are Doing, and Why” is an attempt to enter the mind, body and emotions of birds while they’re engaged in the various acts of being alive. It is full of facts on how different species of birds perceive the world, tell time, rest, eat and make decisions. This is the “it” book of 2020 for anyone interested in the many different ways there are to live.
