In Birds, devout birder and ornithologist Roger J. Lederer celebrates the heyday of avian illustration in 40 artists' profiles, beginning with the work of Flemish painter Frans Snyders in the early 1600s and continuing through to contemporary artists like Elizabeth Buttersworth, famed for her portraits of macaws.

Stretching its wings across time, taxa, geography, and artistic style – from the celebrated realism of American conservation icon John James Audubon, to Elizabeth Gould's nineteenth-century renderings of museum specimens from the Himalayas, to Swedish artist and ornithologist Lars Jonsson's ethereal watercolours – this book is a cornucopia of art and artists as diverse and beautiful as their subjects.

Birds celebrates the heyday of avian illustration in 40 artists' profiles, beginning in the early 1600s and continuing through to contemporary artists.

Dr Roger J. Lederer is an ornithologist and emeritus professor of biological sciences at California State University who has spent more than 40 years studying and writing about birds. He has written several books, including Latin for Bird Lovers, Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs and Pacific Coast Bird Finder, as well as over 30 scientific papers. He has been a consultant on birds for the BBC, National Geographic, Vanity Fair, Fox TV, ABC News and Condé Nast and writes a blog at Ornithology.com.