Gallery: Birds With Borders

From the Spring 2026 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now.

When illustrator C.F. Payne looks at the California Gull that he painted in the shape of Utah, he says that he has a good laugh: “It reminds me of the old Tom and Jerry cartoons, like when Tom gets his head slammed in a mailbox.” That sense of whimsy shows up throughout a recent project Payne undertook to paint all 50 state birds of the U.S.A., with each bird portrayed in the shape of the state they represent.

The first state bird he painted, a Northern Cardinal from his home state of Ohio, sold just hours after he posted it on his Instagram feed, as did a second one of the same subject. “Then someone asked if I could do Illinois,” he says. “I started thinking, ‘What if I could do all 50 states?’ and that’s how it started.” 

See more of Payne’s state bird portraits.