About the Author

When Ellie Sandall was a student in Bath, England, she used to visit an aviary. She says "I was listening to the birds there one day while sketching them, and I loved the way in which all the different sounds wove together to create a seemingly continuous conversation. I wrote down some of the bird sounds in my sketchbook, and I liked the idea of a single bird being joined by more and more friends so that the air became filled with different calls, only to be silenced by the screech of the biggest bird." Birdsong is Ms. Sandall's first picture book, and she lists Vincent van Gogh, Gustav Klimt Brian Wildsmith and Eric Carle as her influences. She lives in England."