Celebrating Birds: An Interactive Field Guide Featuring Art from Wingspan
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Bryony Angell is a devoted birder and writer, focusing her stories on women in the birding world, who has been recognized in regional and national publications. An advocate herself, Angell has served on the Seattle Audubon board, contributed to our blogs, and volunteered with us for 10 years as a community scientist.
Angell recently wrote about the female artists behind the art in the Wingspan board game and their new book Celebrating Birds: An Interactive Field Guide Featuring Art from Wingspan. In her recent blogpost, she said:
“Artists and Wingspan board game illustrators Natalia Rojas and Ana Maria Martinez have released a companion book Celebrating Birds, a stand alone field guide featuring their artwork from the North America edition of the game.
“Rojas and Martinez are significant as female artist contributors to the birding field guide world, long dominated by male artists, and the story behind the book’s publication involves a team of women from the designer of the Wingspan game to written content creators to publisher, in addition to the artists.”
Both from Medellin, Colombia, Natalia Rojas and Ana Maria Martinez are lifelong friends who started partnering in 2017 on wildlife art for home decoration.
Rojas, who currently lives in Tampa, Florida, is a self-taught illustrator. She specializes in graphite and colored pencil drawings that are highly detailed and hyper realistic. In 2016 Rojas devoted her life to the creation of her art. Ana Maria Martinez is currently based in Medellin, Colombia. In addition to her artistic output, Martinez currently works as an adjunct professor and researcher at the University of Antioquia, the same institution where she earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees.
Read more about Bryony and discover her blog.
Read Bryony’s full book review.
Should We Feed Birds? What the Science Says About the Impacts of Bird Feeding
Feeding birds is one of the most common ways people connect with nature—but is it helping or harming wildlife? Learn what science says and how to feed birds responsibly.
Working Towards an IDEAL CBC 2025 Update
Last year, we embarked on an exciting journey to make the annual Christmas Bird Count, or CBC, more accessible to all birders in our community. This year, we will expand on these changes with additional modifications to keep the momentum going.
Neighborhood Bird Project: Data Suggest More than Half of Local Bird Species Could Be Declining
Multiple recent assessments, including The State of the Birds 2025, have documented troubling declines in North American bird populations. But how are birds faring here in Seattle?