A great thinning of the skies is underway. Around half of Britain's bird species are now in decline, and our dawns and springs grow quieter with each passing year. Book of Birds, seven years in the making, is Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane's response: a compendium of forty-nine species presently declining or endangered across Britain, from Avocet to Yellowhammer, painted and written not as a conventional field guide but as an act of attention and love.
Each print in this collection is taken directly from the book and finished by hand with gold leaf, a technique rooted in illuminated manuscript tradition that lends even Britain's smallest, most overlooked garden birds an unexpected grandeur. Morris's watercolours are built on close, patient observation: the particular angle of a wing in flight, the exact colouring of a breast feather, the way a bird holds itself at rest. Macfarlane's accompanying text, drawn from years of research into each species' habits, habitats and folklore, gives the collection its emotional weight, asking not simply "what is that bird?" but "who is that bird?"
Every impression is signed by both Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane, and includes a handwritten quotation drawn from the book itself, meaning no two prints within an edition are ever quite identical. Each piece also comes with a free copy of Book of Birds, so collectors can read the full story behind the print hanging on their wall.
This is a collection for anyone drawn to Britain's vanishing wildlife, and to art made with genuine conservation purpose at its heart, as much a quiet act of hope as it is a body of exceptional watercolour painting.
