A Close-Up Look at the Beauty of Backyard Birds

Artist Rosalie Haizlett likes to zoom in on the small and overlooked wonders of nature—tiny fungi, delicate plants, or, in this case, feathers of common birds.

In “Wildwing Triptych,” she trains her figurative microscope on three species she often sees near her home in Elkins, West Virginia: the Blue Jay, Northern Flicker, and Northern Cardinal. Each wing close-up corresponds with a primary color—blue, yellow, red. While bright colors are more often associated with tropical birds, Haizlett points out, these paintings call attention to the vibrancy of backyard species. “The whole goal of this little series was to showcase really common birds that we might often ignore, or underappreciate, in a new way,” she says.

When Haizlett began spending more time around birders, including as a field journaling instructor at Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine, she noticed that some species arouse more excitement than others. Birders will eagerly add “lifers” and other rare birds to their lists, but barely register the presence of crows, robins, and House Finches. As Haizlett started birding more, she noticed she was starting to overlook her frequent backyard visitors, too.

Studying and painting the feathers of common birds was her way of pushing back against that inclination. “I wanted to reclaim the delight that I used to feel when I saw a cardinal show up at my bird feeder,” she says.

Haizlett began working on the series during an artist residency at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, New York. Peterson was a renowned naturalist and illustrator of numerous popular field guides, as well as a former art director of Audubon. During Haizlett’s weeklong residency she immersed herself in his archives, studying his bird illustrations. She also came across a 1993 New York Times profile in which Peterson bemoaned the “drudgery” of field guide illustration and expressed his thwarted desire to do more high art.

At the time, Haizlett had recently finished her own kind of field journal: her second book, Tiny Worlds of the Appalachian Mountains, a detail-oriented illustrated natural history of the smallest creatures in the region. But for her next work, Haizlett allowed herself to depart from this research-heavy approach in favor of a more artful and abstract series of paintings, zeroing in on the textures of bird feathers. “I could not sit down and paint another whole bird perfectly proportioned,” she says. “I really just wanted to think about the beauty of what I was seeing.”

Haizlett worked from detailed reference photos of each bird, first sketching them in pencil on a large sheet of paper and erasing all but a few guidelines. Then she began layering the watercolors, working from light to dark. “I really like having tons of contrast, so I build up layers for a really long time,” she says. By letting the paper fully dry in between each layer of pigment, she ensures that the lines of color are sharp and vivid.

Each painting took a couple of weeks to complete, a couple of hours per day. “It was hard to know when to stop on these, because with feathers, you could go into infinite detail, and I didn’t want it to look hyperrealistic,” she says. “I like building in a little whimsy to my art.”

Now, when people see the feather portraits, Haizlett says many don’t even recognize the species without reading the descriptions. She likes the element of surprise—“that something so familiar could be so interesting.”

Though the three birds pictured here remain widespread and abundant, Haizlett hopes the paintings inspire people to care about conservation of everyday birds, too. Quoting the environmentalist Rosalie Edge, who founded the world’s first sanctuary for birds of prey at Pennsylvania’s Hawk Mountain, she adds: “The time to protect a species is while it’s still common.”

This piece originally ran in the Spring 2025 issue. To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.