How To Draw: Birds of Prey

Birds of prey are perhaps one of the most exciting group of birds around. They are impressive predators, varying from speedy falcons to majestic eagles. From your back garden to the wildest mountainscape, a sight from any species of bird of prey should make anyones day extra special. It is no wonder that they have been a big part of our culture for hundreds of years. But what about drawing them? Birds of prey can be challenging to draw, especially in flight. Today, I will focus on drawing these birds from a perch and their distinctive feature, the hooked bill.

Stage One

There are two likely postures a bird of prey would make when they perch on a branch or post, etc. It all depends on the size of the bird. A small bird like a falcon would be more likely to perch upright, while a large bird like an eagle is likely to be heavy to perch upright. To demonstrate both of these postures, I will draw my favourite falcon, the hobby, for an upright posture and my bird of the week, the osprey, for the other posture. The basic shapes for any bird of prey is a circle for the head, an oval for the body and connect both with two lines for a neck. The tails are either triangular or squared shapes, depending on what bird your drawing (two triangles attached to a rectangle if you are drawing the forked tail of a red kite for example).

Stage Two

Hobby Stage Two: Start at the back of the head and draw up and round to where the bill is going to be. The bill is made up of two parts; a square and a very small circle with a line for the hook part at the tip. At the base of the bill, draw a small square and at the back of that, draw the eye (a black dot with a ring round it), then shade in the shape that forms the 'hood' of the bird. At the back of the head and at the chin of the bird, draw two curving lines on each side down for the body and the wings (which narrow downwards). At the top of the perch, draw in the talons, which are made up of three foward facing toes and one back facing toe. drawn in using thin lines with a heavy mark for the talons at the end of each toe. Then create long lines with rounded ends for the tail feathers. Finally shade in the markings and other details.

Osprey Stage Two: Start at the back of the head and do the same thing I did for the hobby's head and bill, except shade in an eye stripe and draw a slightly jagged line at the back of the head for the crest. From where the eye stripe meets the back of the head, Continue shading down the back of the neck. Draw an oval for the wing facing us, connecting the wing tip to it and shade in the wing and the back. From the bottom of the bill, draw a line downwards and draw a curving line for the far wing and shade it in. The legs and talons are longer and thicker than the hobby's but is drawn with the same set of lines. Draw a line across the top of the far leg, while connect the leg facing us to the wing and shade in the area between the two legs. Finally, add in the tail feathers.

Stage Three

Redraw over the two birds with a pen. Shade in the markings and dark areas, including the bill tips. Don't forget to rub out the pencil markings afterwards.

Stage Four

Colour your birds in. The hobby is yellow for the bill, eye ring and feet with a very light layer all over, brown for the markings, hood and a light layer over the yellow layer and red for the vent (lower half of the bird's body). The osprey is brown and white with a yellow eye and grey for the bill and for highlighting shadows.

Stage One

 The most challenging part to draw on a bird of prey is the bill. When your drawing a hooked bill close up and in a dramatic way, there is a lot things that can go wrong, making the drawing appear not the way you wanted it to be. So for this next sketch, I will draw the head of a white-tailed eagle, featuring a massive bill. What I do is to draw a large circular shape for the head with a smaller circle for the eye and create more circular shapes to constructe the shapes of the mandibles. With the lines of the circles, you can roughly measure out the gap between the two mandibles and draw rough shapes for both of them; a cresent shap for the top mandible and a triangle for the lower one.

Stage Two

Now it is a matter of building over the basic bill shape to create a more solid structure. Start from the hook part of the upper mandible. The upper mandible devided in two with a nostril in the centre. The top of the upper mandible is curved, while the bottom of it is flat and reasonably straight, but begins to curve towards the back of the gaping bill. This line then curves round to the inside edge of the lower mandible (like a lip), which continues upwards with a bit of a bend, meeting at where the line dividing up the upper mandible is. The bend part can be difficult to get right and all I can say is that you need to play around until you are happy with it. Shade in the inside of the bill with two thick dark lines on the roof of the 'mouth'. Shade in the pupil of the eye and the eye's outside edge with a white ring around it. Scribble loosely to create the feathers all over the head.

Stage Three

With your pen, you can adjust the shape of your bill further if you wish. Leave the outside of the bill clean of shading (only a few very light marks is all that is needed). The inner bill is heavily shaded near the back (and the grooves on the roof of the bill) and lightly shade towards the outer edge. For the feathers, scribble 'V'-shapes all over the head, but the throat is made up of lines jutting outwards.

Stage Four

Finally, colour in your drawing. The bill is yellow with orange highlights, the inner bill is orange or red, the eye is yellow and orange with a yellow eye ring. For the feathers, I first use a light layer of yellow before applying brown to it. I used a darker brown for highlights on the feathers.




I hope I have helped you draw these magnificent birds. They are very tricky to draw than most other birds, but with lots of practice and patience, you will improve in time. I may do a second part featuring birds of prey in flight in future, but until then, good luck with all your drawings!