What began 25 years ago as a compulsion to better understand bird anatomy gave birth to an idea for a book that just wouldn't let Katrina van Grouw rest.

"I just couldn't bear the thought that it would not exist," she said in a recent telephone interview from her home in Buckinghamshire, England. "I just believed in it."

A classically trained fine artist who's also learned taxidermy and specimen preparation and was a curator at London's Natural History Museum, van Grouw's "The Unfeathered Bird" came into being last year, the result of her persistence through years of unsuccessful meetings with potential publishers and hundreds of hours creating 385 detailed illustrations of 200 bird species that comprise the book. Published by Princeton University Press, it has been met with enthusiastic reviews in scientific journals, birder magazines and general interest publications alike.

"I never wanted it to be a text book," van Grouw said. "I wanted it to accessible to a wide range of people."

On Tuesday at the Wheeler Library in North Stonington, van Grouw will give a talk about the book, showing slides of her drawings and describing the sometimes humorous ways the skeletons she used as her models were collected and prepared. With help from her husband, bird curator Hein van Grouw, she posed the bones - which came from taxidermist friends, road kill, zoos, nature centers and other sources - in lifelike positions that reveal how their unique anatomy is adapted to their behaviors.

"We had a lot of fun choosing the poses," she said. "My husband and I would spend hours discussing them."

Along with the illustrations, the book contains text about birds' anatomy, habits and evolution, written in a lively, jargon-free style. The marriage of art and science the book embodies has appealed to a wide range of readers, many of whom have contacted her.

"I've heard from all sorts of people - paleontologists, artists, birders," she said.

The talk at the Wheeler Library will be among the smaller and more out-of-the-way venues in her two-week book promotion tour. Other stops will include Harvard University, the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club annual meeting and the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, his Pennsylvania boyhood home.

"That's the one I'm most excited about," she said. "Audubon was a huge influence on me."

j.benson@theday.com

Twitter: @BensonJudy

IF YOU GO

What: "A Very Fine Swan Indeed" - Art, Science and "The Unfeathered Bird," An Evening with Artist and Naturalist Katrina van Grouw

When: 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 18

Where: Wheeler Library, 101 Main St., North Stonington

Information: contact the library at (860) 535-0383 or Bruce Fellman at (860) 599-4867.