Birds The Art of Ornithology

Jonathan Elphick tells the remarkable story of the development of bird art through the centuries.

The book features early, skillfully executed but often fanciful images of birds, scientific illustrations produced during the ages of exploration, and modern approaches capturing the essence of these freest of all creatures.

This reduced size edition is chunky yet portable, and retains the lavish finish of the original gift book. The outstanding selection of images from the unrivaled collection at the Natural History Museum includes exquisitely crafted works from some of the most famous bird artists ever published including Audubon, Lear, MacGillivray and Gould.

Jonathan Elphick is a wildlife writer, editor, consultant, lecturer and broadcaster, specializing in ornithology. During a career spanning almost 40 years, he has written many books including The Atlas of Bird Migration, Birds: A Complete Guide to their Biology and Behavior, and The World of Birds. He was a researcher for Birds & People (2013), the largest survey of cultural attitudes to birds worldwide, and spent five years as a researcher on the acclaimed Birds Britannica (2005).