This is a quixotic effort to illustrate all the birds I’ve seen in real life.
- Life list so far: 212
- Total bird species painted so far: 43 (20.3%) as of September 2024
The Bird Lists
The birds are presented in “life list” order – that is, the order in which I first saw the bird – not the order in which I painted them. As you go down the list, you’ll see a mix of skill, effort, and polish levels. I painted them in no particular order; some are travel sketches and some are after-the-fact paintings, some are close-ups and some show the bird integrated into the landscape. Some paintings are based on specific birdwatching incidents, while others are based on reference photos. The caption gives the date of the painting and, in some cases, the location of the specific bird I was painting (not necessarily my first sighting).
I’ve divided these into subpages so each page only has to have 50 or so birds on it, not all 200+.
Birds 1-49, first seen in 2014; 18/49 painted
Birds 50-90, first seen 2015-2019; 9/41 painted
Birds 91-141, first seen 2020-2021; 5/50 painted
Birds 142-201, first seen 2022-2023; 11/60 painted
Birds 202-212, first seen 2024: 0/11 painted