National Geographic Live just held their first virtual event of 2021, a conversation with Sketch Biologist Abby McBride as part of the “Breaking the Ice” series. National Geographic Explorer Yazan Kopty moderated the conversation, asking his own questions and taking some from the virtual audience.
During the event, Abby McBride shared that her love of drawing nature was inspired by her grandma, who would sit outside in her garden making paintings of her garden. She studied biology at Williams College and struggled to find her path before going to graduate school at MIT to study science writing where she found that her sketches could accompany her writings.
One of her recent exciting adventures took her to New Zealand where she lived for a year in a station wagon while studying seabirds and sketching them. Highlights of the expedition included propelling down sea cliffs to find bird nests, following a bird sniffing dog, and sailing to the remote Aukland island to study the endangered yellow eyed penguin where she also learned how to outrun a sea lion.
Photo Source: SketchBiologist.com
New Zealand was an interesting case study because it had no mammals until about a millennium ago. As the seabird capital of the world, the avians have faced numerous challenges imposed by people including the introduction of livestock and rodents to the land, overfishing the seas and warming of the oceans. On top of that, seabirds are attracted to fish bait and often get unintentionally caught.
At the end of the conversation, Abby shared that people can help out by learning more about the threats to animals where they live and taking local actions to help them. Those small changes can have a ripple effect that can spread far and wide.
If you want to get a tutorial in how to sketch like Abby McBride, National Geographic Live is hosting another event tomorrow, January 13th, at 4pm ET / 1pm PT on their facebook page. Click here for more details. All you’ll need is some paper and a pencil to follow along.