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An illustration of some crake chicks: Baillon’s crake (top and figure 1), little crake (figure 2) and spotted crake (figure 3) from Aquila v.76-77. Crake chicks begin their lives with black downy feathers before later developing brown feathers in adulthood.

Full text here.

birds crake

Aug 26, 2022
365 notes
An illustration from George Dawson Rowley‘s Ornithological miscellany v.2 (1877), captioned “Mother Carey and her chickens.” According to Wikipedia, Mother Carey is a personification of the dangers of the sea. Storm Petrels, birds thought by sailors...

An illustration from George Dawson Rowley‘s Ornithological miscellany v.2 (1877), captioned “Mother Carey and her chickens.” According to Wikipedia, Mother Carey is a personification of the dangers of the sea. Storm Petrels, birds thought by sailors to be harbingers of storms, are sometimes referred to as “Mother Carey’s chickens”.

The full text is available here.

illustration birds folklore Mother Carey Storm Petrels

Nov 12, 2021
403 notes
Canaries at a birdbath from Francis Smith’s 1868 book The canary : its varieties, management, and breeding : with portraits of the author’s own birds. Full text available here.

Canaries at a birdbath from Francis Smith’s 1868 book The canary : its varieties, management, and breeding : with portraits of the author’s own birds.

Full text available here.

canary birds

Aug 03, 2021
266 notes

For #NationalBirdDay, we’re highlighting Daniel Elliot’s The new and heretofore unfigured species of the birds of North America (1869). 

 Elliot, who was an ornithologist and a founder of American Museum of Natural History , provided text. The beautiful illustrations were by Elliot himself, as well as Joseph Wolf, Edwin Sheppard and others. It includes species not previously found in works by either Alexander Wilson or John James Audubon 

Find our copy in @biodivlibrary : https://s.si.edu/2LmpSHI

birds scientific illustration natural history

Jan 05, 2021
185 notes
Mockingbirds battle a snake in this especially action-packed illustration from John Audubon’s The birds of America, from drawings made in the United States and their territories

Mockingbirds battle a snake in this especially action-packed illustration from  John Audubon’s The birds of America, from drawings made in the United States and their territories

birds snakes illustration

Dec 11, 2020
286 notes
If you’re finding it difficult to draw birds for this year’s Draw a Bird Day, don’t get discouraged! Even famed naturalist and illustrator Abel Chapman had difficulty drawing birds sometimes, as evidenced by this page from his 1913 Sudan...

If you’re finding it difficult to draw birds for this year’s Draw a Bird Day, don’t get discouraged! Even famed naturalist and illustrator Abel Chapman had difficulty drawing birds sometimes, as evidenced by this page from his 1913 Sudan sketchbook.

Full text with many other drawings of birds (and other animals) here.

draw a bird scientific illustration birds

Apr 08, 2020
489 notes

#DrawABirdDay Inspo

Have a budding artist or ornithologist in your home? Tomorrow, April 8th, is #DrawABirdDay and we’re here to provide some avian inspiration!

Click on a bird or a booklink and get doodling! 


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John Gould’s The birds of Europe, with many gorgeous illustrations by his wife Elizabeth: s.si.edu/2FZBFru   Learn more about Elizabeth & her role on our blog: s.si.edu/2USxcfj

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Madame Knip’s Les pigeons. And as dramatic as the pigeons are, the book itself comes with a bit of publishing drama ( read more: https://s.si.edu/39xHs20) . 📖Find the whole book in @biodivlibrary​: https://s.si.edu/2Wg8STA .

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Jacob H. Sturm’s “The birds of North America” (1895) packs a lot of #DrawABirdDay inspiration in each plate. Painter Theodore Jasper provided the bird portraits on which the plates were based. 📖Find the whole book in @BioDivLibrary  : s.si.edu/3aRIQ0Q .

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Finally, the obvious choice - John James Audubon! Our copy of The Birds of America in @BioDivLibrary is not the famous double-elephant, but smaller, more affordable version with text borrowed from his Ornithological Biography : s.si.edu/2lQyU0d

Birds DrawABirdDay SciArt

Apr 07, 2020
238 notes

When you find a pigeon feather while treating a book called Les Pigeons , you have to make sure they stay together. We’ve made a small drawer for the feather in the box for the book. The box is still under construction. Learn more about the book and it’s (somewhat sneaky) author Madame Pauline Knip, on our blog: https://s.si.edu/2E8MSG5

IFTTT Instagram birds book conservation

Oct 09, 2018
80 notes

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