“Most insect and bird field guides require you to encounter a species first and then wade through pages, hoping to identify whatever you encountered. In The Art of Migration, you learn about the species and when you can expect to encounter them. With that information, you are inspired to step outside and locate that yellow-rumped warbler or dog-day cicada. It is refreshing reading something that’s science-based, beautiful, and fun.”

Tom Clay, Executive Director, Illinois Audubon Society

“Peggy Macnamara’s wonderful talent as an artist and deep understanding of science enable her to deftly capture the natural world through her watercolors. This is an extraordinary volume capping Peggy’s insight into migratory patterns, the Chicago natural area, and seasonal change. It should be required reading for everyone concerned about our natural habitat and about the miraculous combination of senses that enable bird migration.”

John W. McCarter Jr., president and CEO of the Field Museum

"The Art of Migration is no dry field guide or academic reference. Rather, it is a little treasure, beautiful to look at and enjoyable to read." 

Chicago Book Review

"Macnamara’s paintings blend scenes of birds and insects in flight with more representational images. The transparent nature of watercolors allows her to offer context for bird migration; a map of South America or the Chicago skyline may appear layered in the background. This is not a field guide but a conversational collection of impressions." 

Chicago Tribune

"In lovely, brightly colored watercolors in The Art of Migration, Macnamara reminds us that even in one of the most heavily developed areas of the United States, you can still find dog-day cicadas, banded woolly-bears, kinglets, nighthawks, Snowy Owls, and countless other beautiful and wild creatures. Thank goodness."

Birdwatching

"Despite the Chicago-centric presentation, the birds and insects depicted could be found anywhere east of the Mississippi at the same latitude; there is much here to appeal to non-Chicagoans. This is just a pleasing book that couples luminously alive scenes of birds and insects through the journey of the seasons."

The Quarterly Review of Biology

"This is an exceptional book. Peggy Macnamara’s drawings are studies of the subject with the background often sketched in in an ethereal manner making the whole subject come alive—birds, butterflies, and other insects. . . . This work is certainly one that you will use and admire."

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