The Martin Luther King Mitzvah

For more than thirty years, Mathew Tekulsky has dedicated himself to photographing birds in his garden in the Brentwood Hills of Los Angeles, California, and in various places around the world. Mathew Tekulsky is the author of Backyard Bird Photography (Skyhorse Publishing, 2014) as well as The Art of Hummingbird Gardening and The Art of Butterfly Gardening (both Skyhorse Publishing, 2015). He is also the author of "The Birdman of Bel Air," a column at NationalGeographic.com featuring essays about his birding experiences. His bird photographs have been published in field guides such as the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds: California and the Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America.

His exhibition of thirty backyard bird images entitled "The Art of Backyard Bird Photography" premiered at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute from January 13 through March 8, 2015. Mass Audubon's Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary mounted this exhibition from April through May, 2016 and the Santa Monica Mountains Visitor Center displayed these images in July 2016. His photograph of a Willow Flycatcher was featured in the national museum tour of the exhibition entitled "Endangered Species: Flora and Fauna in Peril" that included the Wildling Art Museum (June 22-September 14, 2008) and the U.S. Department of the Interior Museum (November 1, 2008-February 28, 2009). His photograph of an Allen's Hummingbird chick and egg in a nest was displayed in the Harvard Museum of Natural History exhibit entitled "Eggs and Nests" in 2007; an exhibition of twelve of his bird photographs was mounted at the San Francisco Airport Museums from February-April, 2009; and his photograph of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird was exhibited at the Festival de L'Oiseau et de la Nature in Le Crotoy, France from April 9-17, 2016.

Mathew has published essays and photographs on birds in Wake-Robin, the newsletter of the John Burroughs Association; and in Phainopepla, the newsletter of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society, on which he has served on the board of directors. His essay "John Burroughs in Yosemite" was posted on the North American Review blog on March 10, 2017. His iconic photograph of Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park was turned into a seven by seven-foot poster by the Yosemite Sierra Visitors Bureau, and his landscape photographs have been featured in the Yosemite Sierra Visitors Guide on numerous occasions.