This is a book about the watching and drawing of birds in action. The artist and author, Simon Calburn (1938-92), worked only from life and this book is essentially a record in pictures and words of his contact with the world of birds. Over one hundred of the species found in Southern Africa are illustrated, and there are birds from all the principal types of habitat: Birds of the forest and bush, Birds of mountain and veld, Birds of marsh and vlei, Birds of sea and shore. The illustrations range from pencil field-sketches and watercolour studies to large finished plates, and the text describes in simple terms how the artist goes to work, the difficulties that he meets and, above all, the way birds live. Calburn placed great emphasis on the importance of drawing in the field and avoided illustrating any bird which he had not first sketched in movement. With 80 colour plates (16 full-page), multiple in-text line drawings; an introduction, appenda, note on nomenclature and index.
Condition book: very good throughout, solid binding, clean text and plates – light yellow spotting on front
cover/title/dedication page, and on last index/end page; light foxing/spotting outer
paper block on all sides; paper block edges a touch aged in colour; small Durban
bookshop sticker bottom inner front board
dustjacket: some rubmarks on the front
Format: 31x22.5 cm.
Weight: 1228 gr.