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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 25/09/2026

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Borbs: birds looking plump. The alt theme is #Brown. Enter sparrow, or as Ancient Egyptians would call them: 𓅫

A two-page spread from Zoologist's Primer: Birds by Double Proficiency. The spread covers sparrows, round brown borbs, as requested by the Bird of the Day theme.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 24/09/2026

The #BirdOfTheDay theme today is #TheDivers. I can't say we have a favorite, because they're all so awesome, but... I 💖my grebe weirdos.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 16/08/2026

How to recharge after a week of writing about birds: organize them neatly.

A screen cap from Birds Organized Neatly, a puzzle game by DU&I. Six cartoon birds of various shapes and sizes are arranged neatly on a grid.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 27/05/2026

We've been asked recently, so I want to be sure we're honest about our AI policy.

Screencap from Kickstarter comments:
The backer: "Before I fully commit to pledging, I wanted confirmation that AI was NOT used for this book or any previous book in the "Primer" series."
The Double Proficiency response: "Oh, I can 100% assure you that all illustrations have been drawn by my arthritic hands and I'd rather put the whole project (and myself) in a blender than use AI to write it. No AI, ever."

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 20/05/2026

Who would have guessed?! The corvids unapologetically won as the second Champion in our charity donation poll, and with that, we'll be donating money to @abcbirds.bsky.social! And there's still 6 days to go! Next stretch goal up: a coloring book to take for your birding trips 🪶

A digital watercolor and ink illustration showing different crow species: a hooded crow, carrion crow, fish crow, pied crow, and a pied crow egg. The image comes from Zoologist's Primer: Birds by Anna Urbanek and Jakub Wisz of Double Proficiency.

A mock-up of a spiral-bound coloring book on a bright orange background. The partially raised cover shows multiple bird species as black and white line art. Inside you can somewhat see the first page with various albatrosses to color.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 15/05/2026

You can trust a librarian to quote their references and list sources! Years of research > anything genAI can spout out

A screencap from Zoologist's Primer: Birds, the References chapter. Delves into real-world folklore and cultural significance of cormorants. Among listed sources are: Artemidorius Daldianus (2nd cent CE), The history of Cormorant fishing in Europe by Marcus Beike (2012), The Devil's Cormorant: A Natural History by Richard King (2013), and in passing, Milton's Paradise Lost.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 15/05/2026

Cormorant lore is full of absolute whimsy. One of our favorite birds of all time. www.kickstarter.com/projects/hun...

A cormorant spread from Zoologist's Primer: Birds. It features the above illustration, scale reference, basic ornithological data, and a full page description of the birds' physical traits, habitat and behavior, breeding, interaction with humans, magical (folklore) properties, and conservation status.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 15/05/2026

We are so close to unlocking everybody's favorite stretch goal: a deck of illustrated flash cards! It's a cool and pretty deck of cool and pretty birds, and I would ✨love✨ to make it! If you'd like one for yourself, help us spread the word! 🪶 www.kickstarter.com/projects/hun...

A mockup on orange background: an open box of cards covered in bird and egg illustrations, with a title: Zoologist's Primer - Birds. Next to the box are two cards. One shows a an illustration of various cardinals, with a male Northern Cardinal in a main role. The second card shows the reverse of a blackbird card, providing information on their natural history and magical and folklore connotations.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 15/05/2026

You're too kind 💖 May I offer you a duck in return?

Digital watercolor and ink illustration of various ducks: wild and domesticated mallards, a flying teal, a Mandarin duck, and a domestic duck egg.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 12/05/2026

Y'all, we made it! We get to - again! - support #bird conservation, and you can decide which charity we support! Last time, *two* votes decided which champion wins. Cast your vote - and get yourself a cool and shiny TTRPG book on magical birds! www.kickstarter.com/projects/hun...

Six bird illustrations arranged in two rows:
1. Champion of Nobility. Heron. The Audubon Society
2. Champion of Charm. Kakapo. Birdlife International
3. Champion of Power. Peregrine Falcon. The Peregrine Fund
4. Champion of Wisdom. Owl. The Owls Trust
5. Champion of Cunning. Raven. American Bird Conservatory
6. Champion of Industry. Chicken. Farm Sanctuary

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 08/05/2026

Today, we're answering the most important question: what if an owl had a baby with a frog? This. This is what would it look like. In folklore, they are the most inauspicious of birds, connected with evil nocturnal spirits—but come on, look at them. They're just precious babies 💖

A digital watercolor and ink illustration showing different species of frogmouths: tawny, Papuan, and marbled, plus a white oval egg.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 06/05/2026

Do you want to befriend a crow, negotiate with albatrosses, and harness lightning with flamingo feathers? (In a roleplaying game, at least.) This is not a monster manual - it's a guide to coexistence, full of quest ideas and inspiration to add birds to your storytelling!

An open book mockup shows an illustrated entry on bowerbirds, various species are drawn above a table with data and scale reference. The opposite page describes the birds in more detail, listing their biology, folklore, and magic. A header above reads: "Zoologist's Primer. An illustrated guide to real-world magical birds." In other corners: "Compatible with all tabletop RPG systems" and a selection of tags: birdwatching, wicca, divination, feather magic, folklore, TTRPG, D&D 5e, worldbuilding.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 01/05/2026

We have unlocked the adventure zine in our Kickstarter campaign! That means: we get to teach all readers about ornithomancy, and I couldn't be happier. Is it a cool, modern thing to resurrect ancient Roman tradition of augury...? Yes. Jakub is writing the rules, and I'm drawing more birbs! 🐦‍⬛✨

A mockup of a bird-covered zine. The title reads: "Adventures in Augury". The nearby text on the orange background reads: "Cover design and title not final. Final version will be way cooler"

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 30/04/2026

Happy Beltane to all who celebrate! And to @jakubwisz.bsky.social specifically, happy birthday 🎂 (don't mind the low-key spoiler of a project we're working on in the background 🤫)

The pink Beltane text, on grass-green background is surrounded by drawings of plants, crystals, and fungi befitting the holiday: amethyst, dogwood, rose quartz, carnelian, yarrow, ink cap, witches' butter and others

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 30/04/2026

We have a family of blackbirds in our backyard, with three babies this season. They've been quite insistent about us noticing their songs this morning 🐦‍⬛💖

A watercolor and ink illustration of blackbirds, mostly the European common blackbird. The illustration is from Zoologist's Primer: Birds book

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 29/04/2026

In the first day of #ZoologistsPrimer, we got the book funded, secured our scientific editor, unlocked a fancy poster, a notebook, a ribbon bookmark, and—what I'm most excited about—the first bird charity donation! Choose your champion! @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/hun...

A graphic showing three birds: a heron, a kakapo parrot, and a peregrine falcon. The text reads: "Choose the bird charity we donate to" and lists the Audubon Society, Birdlife International, and the Peregrine Fund as options.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 29/04/2026

I don't know if drawings count for #BirdOfTheDay, but look at this magnificent #BeautyInBrown! Buzzards, though ambiguous in taxonomy, are well defined in folklore: their appearance, calls, and flight patterns deliver warnings about upcoming important events—or a storm closing in! #ZoologistsPrimer

A watercolor and ink illustration showing different buzzards: a common buzzard, a red-tailed hawk, a roadside hawk, and a common buzzard spotted egg.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 27/04/2026

It’s #CrowandRavenAppreciationDay! In other news, our Kickstarter campaign for Zoologist's Primer: Birds launches tomorrow! 🐦‍⬛ We have blue jays, crows, jackdaws, magpies, and ravens! We also have the "honorary corvid": blackbird! Come join the fun! www.kickstarter.com/projects/hun...

A watercolor and ink illustration showing different species of crows.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 28/03/2026

Hah, you're gonna love my blackbird dress even more; it's by a local designer from our city (MUKA/VA), and I *adore* it.

A product photo of a woman posing in a knee-length casual cotton dress, pale pink, with a kaleidoscopic pattern of blackbirds in flight.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 05/03/2026

Have the confidence of the medieval scribe claiming they know what a hornbill is.

A miniature of Tragopalas, described as a kind of hornbill, in a Middle Dutch encyclopedia of nature by Jacob van Maerlant. The picture shows a pissed-off bird, wings at his hips, and two antler-like horns growing out of its head.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 29/01/2026

The common loon (called here a great northern diver) is the state bird of Minnesota. It's a symbol of healing and transformation. In a folktale "The Blind Boy and the Loon," a blind child living with an abusive guardian has their sight restored by a kind bird. See firstarts.ca/content/feat...

A watercolor and ink illustration showing three different loon (diver) species, a silhouette in flight, and an egg.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 27/01/2026

The fifth horse has arrived, right in time for the apocalypse. (I need one.) www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

A photo of lined-up red horse plushies. Someone mistakenly sewed their mouths upside down, so instead of smiling, they are looking like they're just about to cry as they side-eye the world.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 22/01/2026

Timelines are being set, bird omens are being written... We will have some fun bird book announcements soon 🐦‍⬛ #ZoologistsPrimer

A watercolor & ink illustrations showing four different crow species and a brown-spotted crow egg.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 12/01/2026

Hey, just so you know, I'm putting together a sample of the bird book and agonizing over which birds to put on the cover... So, consider this a free call for your favorites! 🐦‍⬛

A content spread from Zoologist's Primer: Birds, decorated with a common robin perched up on a twig. The Bird Guide includes a hundred of birds eligible for a place on the cover.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 11/12/2025

Some of y'all asked if we're including dinosaurs in our upcoming bird book. Well, yesn't. #ZoologistsPrimer

A detailed watercolor and ink illustration of the cassowary, showing the southern cassowary in a dinosaur-like stride, heads of the other two species, a youngling, and a green egg.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 09/12/2025

Today is a pretty standard day at our house/studio: Jakub is researching chicken folklore, I'm drawing the chunkiest possible northern cardinal. It's not flashy or aspirational - just a day of steady, consistent work. That's how big projects are made. Enjoy the birb.

A photograph of a male northern cardinal perched on a branch.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 03/12/2025

Today, we're writing about canaries. What's the likelihood that we'll manage to smuggle "classically birb-shaped" past a science editor?

A photo of a forest canary, a roundish yellow finch perched upon a branch.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 04/11/2025

One of these days, I'll need to reach out to terrifyingly successful people and organizations to start setting up some publicity for The Bird Book. I love folklore. I love birds. I love writing and drawing. But talking to people...? 😱 If you know non-scary sci-com bird people, let me know 😅

A digital ink & watercolor illustration of blackbirds from the upcoming Zoologist's Primer: Birds book.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 25/10/2025

I woke up to Blue Jays trending, so this must be fate. I literally drew them yesterday! All best birds are corvids.

A digital ink & watercolor drawing of the bird blue jay, having nothing in common with the trending topic which is, I think, baseball thing. These blue jays are happily perched on sticks and fence posts, with their blue crests lowered or raised. There's also an egg in a corner.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 24/10/2025

It's time to bring back one of my favorite things we ever made. Suitable for any system and party, with guidelines to run it anywhere on the spectrum from child-friendly to gothic horror. If you need an adventure for your Halloween ttrpg night, give it a try. www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/4...

On a black and gold marble lies a stack of The Phantom Manor zines. On the cover, a cartoon-style ghost does its best to scare you. A crimson reflection of a manor appears in one of the black eye holes. A cartoon spider swings on a silk thread from the subtitle: "A spooky adventure for characters of any game and level." Next to the zines, a text reads: "10 rooms, 13 ghosts, 1 mysterious door. Can you survive until dawn and lift the Rosebloom family curse?"

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 24/10/2025

Stanny's illustration style is unmistakable: dark, haunting, liminal, surreal. And SOMEONE thought it's a good idea to have him illustrate fairy tales. Behold, the art that broke me at the tender age of 6 when I decided to read my Mom's Andersen anthology for myself.

A gloomy, misty, and green forest seems to devour completely lost Thumbelina who looks like she's about four years old. An ethereal, giant toad observes the child from afar, deciding to kidnap her as a bride for the toad's son.

An illustration from The Nightingale: A disembodied hand floats above a seashore, dwarfing a sailboat beneath it. On the index finger perches a robotic nightingale made of cold steel decorated with green gems and a string of pearls. Instead of a bird head there's a human skull, looking as dead as it possibly can.

An illustration from "The Red Shoes": A beautifully dressed child in a fluffy white dress and elegant hat runs in panic across a hostile forest. On her feet, she wears red shoes that she cannot ever take off. The hill behind the girl is a monstrous head, with topography turned into facial features. The hill's face is wrinkled in pain, fear, and remorse.

An illustration from "The Tinderbox": A small soldier in green uniform cowers in a corner as the picture is dominated by a demonic creature: part tree, part human, with an open, mocking smile. In the depths of the mouth hides an animal-like spirit. The face of the witch-tree is topped with figures of a resting king and queen.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 24/10/2025

The Polish School of Posters was not limited to movie posters, and it was lead by some of the most prominent artists of the time. Look at this amazing bird: it's a 1978 ad poster for Polish Airlines (LOT) with a business end of a sparrow. Painted by Janusz Stanny, source of my childhood nightmare.

A painted poster with an anthropomorphized sparrow wearing a sparrow-brown business suit, no pants, white shirt, golden vest, and dark brown tie. The sparrow carries a briefcase as stares you down, so you know it means business.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 02/09/2025

Y'all know we're here to lobby for #stibnite. It's got antimony, known as The Wolf of Alchemy: a hungry, devouring, and transformative force making shape-changing and transformation of metals possible 🐺💎

An illustration of antimony minerals, including needle-like stibnite crystals. The pic comes from Geologist's Primer by Double Proficiency.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 08/08/2025

I've just learned about #AvianAugust2025, and while I don't have the time to fully participate, I can make a sneak announcement re: future Primers 🐣

A simple illustration of a magpie sitting on a naked branch. The bird it sitting with its back and tail to you, displaying the beautiful array of iridescent colors on its feathers.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 07/08/2025

Ergot is fascinating. It has been plaguing humanity at least since the dawn of agriculture. The oldest sclerotium was discovered on a grass floret encased in amber from the early-mid Cretaceous period, somewhere around 100 million years ago.

A digital watercolor "botanical" illustration of ergot, showing purple-black sclerotia in various forms.

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Double Proficiency 🐦‍⬛ @doubleproficiency.com · 07/08/2025

Just updating our #AlchemistsToolkit system to include fungi, on top of plants and minerals we already have there as reagents. Can't wait to see what potions people make from them!

A reagent card of fly agaric, a common mushroom with red cap covered in white warts. The picture of the mushroom is included on the left side. It is found in 4 biomes (forest, grassland, urban, and waste) and represents the element of air. The card lists three magical effects: magic, chaos, and slow.

A reagent card of sapphire, a rare mineral in various colors, predominantly blue and pink or purple. The picture of the mineral is included on the left side. It is found in 2 biomes (riverbank and underground) and represents the element of water. The card lists three magical effects: healing, courage, and protection.

A reagent card of pomegranate, a rare plant with edible fruits and orange-red flowers. The picture of the flowering plant is included on the left side. It is found in 1 biome (garden or plantation) and represents the element of fire. The card lists three magical effects: healing, detection, and luck.

An excerpt of the Alchemist's Toolkit, describing the process of creating a preparation by choosing a base, adding reagents, elemental essences, and distillates. Underneath, the page includes a sample note with a recipe for Potion of Fire Magic, requiring hawkweed and bismuth.

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