She was commissioned as part of the illustrator team for the American Ornithologists' Union and the Academy of Natural Sciences for the eighteen-volume work Birds of North America from 1991 to 2002.
She has also illustrated educational material for the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.
Arranged by seasons, the essays describe her daily excursions and observations of wild turkeys, box turtles, coyotes and other animals from the forests of her home country.
Illustrated by Zickefoose with 216 paintings and sketches, this work reports on 25 species of birds that she has observed in different seasons around her 80 acre sanctuary near Whipple in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Ohio.
In the book she also tells her seven-year study of Mr. Troyer, the namesake bluebird, who has fathered 53 chicks despite an injured wing caused by the attack of a falcon.