(Part 2 of 2) We meet artist David Sibley who spends his spare time studying birds and painting them.
(Part 2 of 2) We meet artist David Sibley who spends his spare time studying birds and painting them.
...birdwatcher, writer, and artist david sibley can tell us all about what's it's like to be a bird... before covid settled in, rita braver set out to find out what it's like... to be david sibley: vo: in the hedgerows and hayfields of deerfield, massachusetts... sot david: 7:38:59 i'm hearing a lot of birds right now... vo: david sibley can't help talking about the wonder of birds... sot david: they communicate with each other through sight and sound.
Sot rita: kind of like we do.
Sot david: in the same way...yeah, the same way we do...so everything they do is accessible to us.
Vo: & and making birds accessible to us& is the driving force of david sibley's life.
He sketches and paints everything from songbirds and swallows to penguins and puffins& sot david: this is the tufted puffin, that's found in the pacific...and this is called a rhinocerous auklet... sot rita: with that little... sot david laugh//rhinocerou s horn on its head.
Vo: we are talking thousands and thousands of bird pictures...each wing...each feather...carefull y crafted... sot rita: you never said to yourself...i don't care if i ever draw another chickadee?
Sot sibley: no, i didn't...//and it's sort of one foot in front of the other.
Just a faith in the process- that like knitting, or something else ...where it just ...it becomes sort of routine.
Vo: it has been a routine with a goal...to write and illustrate detailed field guides...covering more than 800 species...to help birdwatchers properly identify what they are seeing..
Sot rita: okay, that just looks like a robin... sot david: no, that's a black headed grosbeak... sot rita: oh, no& vo: first published in 2000...the sibley guides to birds have sold more than 2 million copies!
And he's been called the most important illustrator of birds, since john james audubon...or roger torey petersen.
Sot david: the previous field guides had fewer illustrations// and every species has all these variations.
Different ages, different subspecies.
I wanted to illustrate every species in flight.
Vo: now 57, david sibley learned to love birds...by going out on hikes with his father fred...a noted ornithologist at yale..
Sot fred: as soon as the field guide came out//i became much..much less well-known-in the game-laughter.
Sot rita: you're kind of the bird people of north america.
Sot david: yeah, this is sort of our- family business.
Vo: david started drawing birds at age 8...and his parents didn't worry for an instant...when their son dropped out of cornell to pursue his passion...and study birds in the field: sot fred sibley: his reason, very valid, was that cornell has a set track that you follow in your major, and that didn't leave time for looking at birds or painting birds.
Vo: david sibley would spend 14 years driving around the country observing, sketching and always utterly fascinated by birds.... sot david: i really like the shapes, the proportions//the smooth lines//each species so perfectly adapted to its own lifestyle.
Vo: along the way...he met his wife: sot rita: do you think you would have been happy with someone who wasn't as into birds as you are?
Sot david: no, i don't see how that could have worked.
Sot joan walsh : here comes maybe a goldfinch vo: yes, sibley's wife, joan walsh is an ornithologist too.
And in 1988 it was she who really pushed him to fulfill his lifelong dream of writing a field guide sot joan walsh: so i said, you know, you can keep talking about it...or you can just say you're doing it.
Then-he stood up...and he fainted.
Sot rita: really..?
Sot david: it was in a hot tub... vo: he would spend years...working on the guide...but when publishers saw it...they went wild.
Sot rita: what was it like to hear that?
Sot david: it was very exciting, very gratifyng...after all my work...but to walk into a publisher and have them after 5 minutes say yes, we'll do it...in five minutes...was i guess a very unusual experience and yeah very exciting.
Vo: in fact, sibley's first volume hit the new york times best seller list almost immediately.
He followed it up with a series of other popular books about birds.
Vo: and whether it's in his art...or the delight that comes when he watches birds at his backyard feeder... vo: david sibley says he is still learning about his favorite topic... sot david: can birds smell...where do birds... sot rita: can they?
Sot david: yeah, they can smell very well...all birds...and where do birds sleep...how do they stay on a perch while they seep?
Sot rita: how do they old on?
Sot david: they balance.
They balance all night.
Sot rita: in their sleep?
Sot david: while they sleep...uh huh... sot rita: are you just making this up.
Sot david: no it's all...its all true.
Vo: indeed, his latest book is called "what it' like to be a bird."
And who should know better than david allen sibley.
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