Julie Zickefoose

Julie Zickefoose (born July 24, 1958 in Sioux Falls , South Dakota ) is an American nature writer, biologist , bird illustrator and blogger .

Life

Julie Zickefoose has been drawing birds since she was a child. The bird painter Robert Verity Clem (1933–2010) encouraged her to draw living wild birds in nature. She describes the work of Lars Jonsson as one of her main influences . After studying art, anthropology and biology from 1976 on, she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1981 . From 1981 to 1986 she worked as a field biologist for the Nature Conservancy in Connecticut , then for the American Ornithologists' Union and the Academy of Natural Sciences , where she was part of the illustrator team for the eighteen-volume Birds of North America from 1991 to 2002 . She also illustrated teaching materials for the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology , the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

Zickefoose has presented her lectures and illustrations at universities, museums, galleries, and festivals across the United States. Her articles and illustrations have been published in a variety of magazines including The New Yorker , Smithsonian Magazine , Country Journal and Bird Watcher's Digest , for which she designed 17 cover covers. She was married to an editor of the latter journal, William Henry Thompson III (1962-2019), from 1993 until his death in March 2019 and has a daughter and a son.

Zickefoose's early books were about bird watching in the garden. The 1993 Enjoying Bluebirds More guide provides bird watchers with guidance on building birdhouses for cottage warriors, and includes illustrations and color photos. Enjoying Bird Feeding More: Great Ideas for Your Backyard, published in 1995, contains tips for gardening bird feeding and bird attracting. Enjoying Woodpeckers More, published in 2003, is a guide to identifying woodpecker species .

In 2006, Zickefoose published Letters from Eden: A Year at Home, in the Woods , a compilation of columns she wrote for Bird Watcher's Digest . Arranged according to the seasons, the essays describe their daily excursions and observations of wild turkeys , box turtles , coyotes and other animals from the forests of their homeland.

In 2012 the book The Blue Bird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds was published . This work, illustrated by Zickefoose with 216 pictures and sketches, reports on 25 species of birds that she has observed around her house in Whipple in the southern Appalachian mountains of Ohio at different times of the year . Each chapter focuses on one species, including the least tern , the Northern Cardinal , the Savannah Sparrow , the Scarlet Tanager , the Gartentrupial , the Star , the piping plover , the turkey vulture , the barn swallow , the Eastern Phoebe and some endangered species. It also contains stories of rescuing injured birds and journal entries in which Zickefoose describes their observations. In the book she also tells her seven-year study about Mr. Troyer, the eponymous hut singer ( bluebird ), who sired 53 chicks despite an injured wing caused by the attack of a falcon.

In addition to North American birds, Zickefoose also illustrates Neotropical species.

Fonts (selection)

As an author

• Enjoying Bluebirds More. Pardson, Mariett, Ohio 1993.
• Enjoying Bird Feeding More: Great Ideas for Your Backyard. Bird Watcher's Digest Press, Mariett, Ohio 1995.
• Natural Gardening for Birds: The Bird-Friendly Backyard; Simple Ways to Create a Bird Haven. Rodale, Emmaus, Pennsylvania 2001. (also illustrator)
• Enjoying Woodpeckers More. Bird Watcher's Digest Press, Mariett, Ohio, 2003.
• with Bill Thompson III, Kenn Kaufman: Identify Yourself: The 50 Most Common Birding Identification Challenges. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Massachusetts 2005.
• Letters from Eden: A Year at Home, in the Woods. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Massachusetts, 2006.
• Backyard Birding: Using Natural Gardening to Attract Birds , Skyhorse Publishing, 2011.
• The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, Massachusetts, 2012. (also illustrator)
• Baby Birds: An Artist Looks into the Nest. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, Massachusetts, 2016. (also illustrator)
• Saving Jemima: Life and Love with a Hard-luck Jay. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, Massachusetts, 2019.

As an illustrator

• Jonathan Pine: Backyard Birds. HarperCollins, New York City 1993.
• Robert A. Askins: Restoring North America's Bird: Lessons from Landscape Ecology. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 2002.
• Calvin Simonds: Private Lives of Garden Birds. Storey Publishing, North Adams, Massachusetts 2002.
• Ora E. Anderson: Out of the Woods: A Bird Watcher's Year. Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 2007.
• Michael DiGiorgio, Bill Thompson III: The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. 2nd ed. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, Massachusetts 2012.
• Bill Thompson III: The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of North America. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, Massachusetts 2008.

literature

• Nicholas Hammond: Modern Wildlife Painting. Pica Press, 1998, ISBN 187-340-355-0 , p. 235.
• Julie Zickefoose. Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2013. Gale In Context: Biography, accessed October 2, 2019.

Web links

• Literature by and about Julie Zickefoose in the WorldCat bibliographic database
• Official website of Julie Zickefoose
• Julie Zickefoose's blog