Last week’s planned post was derailed by a hard drive failure, this week it is a sketchbiologist who has altered my plans. Last week was an adjustment needed for an unfortunate incident, this week by a positive opportunity. I first met Abby McBride soon after she had arrived in New Zealand on a Fulbright National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship to explore and draw our seabirds. New Zealand has far more endemic seabirds than any other country in the world so is the obvious place to come if you want to focus on seabirds. Abby is a talented artist and has a degree in biology and another in science writing from MIT so is well equipped to communicate scientific issues both visually and in writing. She has coined the term “sketchbiologist” to describe her work and it seems very apt as not many can combine her communication and artistic skills. 

Abby joined us on a trip out onto the Hauraki Gulf doing surveys of seabirds including New Zealand Storm Petrels and visited us in Rotorua a couple of times during her travels. One of the visits was to get repairs done on her faithful car, Indy which was not much fun but the week was tempered by enjoying the mountain bike rides in the Redwoods. We were very touched by the beautiful painting of an Australasian Harrier and kind note she left us when she was able to resume her journey south. 

We were pleased to catch up with her for a meal and a pelagic birding trip in the Bay of Islands just before she left New Zealand to return home to Maine.

Abby has shared the video of her presentation on her New Zealand adventure which was great to see and well worth watching to get an insight into her visit. It is great to see a synthesis of the work she did here and I’m looking forward to seeing more from her.

For more from Abby see her Mimid Magazine, or her National Geographic blog. To see more of her art see her Galleries where you can support her work by purchasing some of her prints.

Photos with Olympus TG5, Nikon D500 with 300mm f4PF lens, and Fuji X100F