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Julie is a widely published natural history writer and artist. Educated at Harvard University in biology and art, she worked for six years as a field biologist for The Nature Conservancy before turning to a freelance art career. Her observations on the natural history and behavior of birds stem from more than three decades of experience in the field. She has presented illustrated lectures for nature organizations and festivals across the country, and exhibited her paintings at universities, museums, galleries, and in juried shows. Julie has painted color posters and illustrated educational materials for the Laboratory of Ornithology and Cornell University, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, and the Boy Scouts of America. Reader’s Digest Books, Yale University Press, and National Geographic Books have published her illustrations or writing. The American Ornithologists’ Union and the Academy of Natural Sciences employed her as a primary illustrator of their landmark 17-volume work, The Birds of North America.
With her husband, Bill Thompson, III, editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest, and her two children Julie lives on an 80-acre nature sanctuary in the Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio. A 42-foot-tall bird watching tower atop their home helps them enjoy and catalogue the wildlife they protect, including 181 bird species and 67 butterfly species to date.
You can learn more about Julie here and view her various portfolios here.