The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds

This book is a joy to read. Julie Zickefoose is quite an artist. The book is filled with beautiful watercolors and lively sketches of drawings of birds. How she loves members of the bird family.Julie begins her book in spring, onto summer, autumn, ending with winter. Different times, different parts of the country. There are different happeningss, different commentaires, different stories about Julie's bird friends. She is a good friend to birds and becomes angry about free roaming dogs and cats that cripple and kill birds. She has much life experience dealing with birds, tells her stories, and is where she wants to be in life.Ms Zickefoose began her love of birds as a very young child being introduced to a tom turkey at a petting zoo. She never wavered from deciding to base her career on her first love. She is a bird mother, feeds baby birds, sketches and portrays them of different ages and stages of growing, if injured she doctors and nurses them, then sends them back into the wild where they belong. They don't always make it. She grieves, then gets back to work on others who need her help. She is a good writer, very knowledgeable about her subjects, acquainted with birds of all kinds, colors, sizes, shapes.I have learned so much about birds, how hard it is to take care of them, especially babies that need to be fed constantly and if there are several babies at a time, Whew. But Julie does it all and loves it. When she worked at the Nature Conservancy, she worked with shore birds. It is comical about how she worked to save piping plovers and least terns that nested along the beach. It was hard to keep beach goers from stepping on eggs and frightening these birds with all the human noises, riding vehicles and dogs. How annoyed she became with careless beach goers. She recruited volunteers to help and protect these shore birds.This lady can draw, she can write, she loves life and nature. The book is a delight, but sad when Julie loses her friends. She gets into the personalities of her birds and feels that when released they come back to visit, Maybe its them, but maybe not. Who knows.I enjoyed reading Ms. Zickefoose's meeting and bonding with an older redtail hawk,how she liked and admired him even though he kills her birds. It is good to go to a secluded corner of a woods to hear bird calls and songs as Julie does.In winter Ms Zickefoose writes controversial topics against hunting the ancient sandhill crane plus the innocent mourning doves. She also writes about feeding birds, which in turn, attracts predators and wonders if this is wrong to keep feeders. However, she likes seeing pretty birds coming to feed. She believes wild birds belong in the wild, not as pets. This is something to think about. Her two children are being taught to love and respect birds and all of nature.This is a great book for birders and for those who love nature

If you love "bird books," as I do, you're always searching for a work that educates us about the looks and lives of our feathered neighbors while also revealing the tragic but often hopeful relationship the inherently flawed species called homo sapiens has had with them. If you're lucky, the book will be filled with art showing the birds going about their daily business. With Julie Zickefoose's autobiographical The Bluebird Effect, you get all of that, in a beautifully-designed volume packed with over 300 thick, glossy pages of the author's stunning bird art wrapped in tale after touching tale of her intimate encounters with birds. By "tale" I don't mean to suggest that Ms. Zickefoose's fluid writing is fictional or unrealistic, but I do mean that The Bluebird Effect, steeped in natural magic, does have a storybook quality to it. We see the author learning about herself as she learns how to care for a variety of injured birds or orphaned nestlings that come her way. Among her patients are eastern phoebes, ruby-throated hummingbirds, scarlet tanagers, chimney swifts, and orchard orioles, each presenting her with a unique challenge that she surmounts after initial mistakes that ultimately improve her bird rehabbing skills. (Often, the challenge is in recognizing and addressing differences in the personalities of birds of the same species!) Along the way, she struggles with many of the issues which today face birders, conservationists, and humans of numerous other stripes: Is it wise to buy a pet bird without knowing any of the pitfalls to owner and bird alike? Should birds even be pets? How can cat owners be made to understand that allowing these purportedly domesticated felines to roam freely outside results in suffering and gruesome death for birds and other wildlife every day? Is there any justification for the hunting of sandhill cranes? What about mourning doves? Does the ivory-billed woodpecker still exist? Are backyard birders themselves guilty of upsetting the balance of nature by feeding birds that otherwise wouldn't be so numerous? The author handles all of these questions, and more, thoughtfully and honestly.

This is a lovely coffee table book to scan and read. The drawn illustrations and memorable stories are shared bky a passionate bird lover....

I first saw the lovely, careful watercolors of Julie Zickefoose in The Nature Conservancy magazine. They were so accurate and lifelike, I was intrigued. Curious, I Googled her to find out she's written and illustrated quite a few books on birds (Baby Birds (2016), The Bluebird Effect (2012), and Letters from Eden (2006) among them, in addition to being a contributing editor to Bird Watcher's Digest. She lives with her family on an eighty-acre sanctuary in Appalachian Ohio.If you are faced with a dilemma for what to gift a birdwatching friend, you can't go wrong with any of Julie's books. She's the Barbara Kingsolver of the avian world.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever purchased! I am not going to repeat all that's been said by numerous other 5-star reviewers, but I can add that I would give it 100 stars and would have paid much more. I plan to purchase additional copies for gifts for nature-loving family and friends. I can also say it has been quite informational to me in my endeavors in animal rehabilitation. I gleaned much information on raising orphaned birds and assisting wounded birds. What a beautifully written book with stunning sketches.

Ordered it for my wife who is a strict conservationist. She loved its humanity as well as the water coloured artwork.We now give it as a gift to friends. A little gem.

A truly beautiful book, particularly for bird lovers.