Brockie knows the value of specimens and reference materials, but he believes there is no substitute for working in the field: "Wildlife art is a continual process of learning, and the importance of field work means that you discover new things every day, thus helping you maintain a fresh approach to the ways of depicting wildlife." Brockie says he also learns from his work as a bird ringer, banding and tracking their travels. His regular practice of searching for the birds, knowing their habitats and handling them gives him a sense of their life cycles. He says, "I can almost reach into the soul of the bird and, in this way, feel and think like the creature itself."

Brockie was educated at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Scotland, where he obtained a diploma in illustration and printmaking. He worked as an illustrator before devoting all of his time to his work as an artist and a naturalist in 1979. His art is perhaps best known by his three books of wildlife sketches, drawings and paintings that have been enormously successful worldwide and acclaimed by reviewers as classics of wildlife art.

Brockie's thorough grounding in wildlife anatomy allows him a fluidity in his art through which he is able to capture his subjects' individual characters and gestures. Brockie believes, however, that "it is always wise to question your ideals and methods so as to prevent your work from 'standing still'... if I were wholly satisfied with my work, it would be the moment to give up, for it would mean the end of the addictive agony of striving for some sort of aesthetic perfection."