Missy Dunaway’s colorful illustrations combine natural history, folklore and literature to depict the Bard’s birds
Missy Dunaway painted 65 birds from Shakespeare combining ornithological data with Renaissance folklore sources. The work illustrates historical research methodology at scale—data curation, documentation, and knowledge preservation from primary sources.
Missy Dunaway’s colorful illustrations combine natural history, folklore and literature to depict the Bard’s birds
Michelle Mehrtens
| Arts and Culture Correspondent
May 29, 2026
Partial view of Eurasian blackbird, Missy Dunaway, acrylic ink on paper
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