Audubon
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Recent Birds
Spotted Sandpiper. A few have been working their way around the edges of the ponds in Green-Wood.Black-throated Blue Warbler.Eastern Kingbird.Hooded Warbler female.Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Female, much plainer than the showy male.Most of our migrants are insectivores, but these big-beaks are seed-crushers. *** George Boorujy’s Gang of Warblers is now available as a print. Very reasonably priced,…
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Raptors
In Raptor: A Journey Through Birds, James MacDonald Lockhart loosely follows William MacGillivray, the nineteenth century ornithologist, from Scotland south, searching for the fifteen species of British raptors. You may recall MacGillivray from the Audubon connection: he was John James’s ornithological ghost writer. I was struck by this: MacGillivray called his knapsack a “machine.” A quick…
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Cyanocitta cristata
Blue Jay. Called by Linnaeus Corvus cristatus. Still a Corvidae. In his five volume Ornithological Biography,* written to accompany The Birds of America, Audubon begins the Blue Jay section with “Reader, look at the plate in which are presented three individuals of this beautiful species, — rogues though they be, and thieves, as I would…
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Audubon and Murals
[By popular demand, here’s the short talk I gave in celebration of John James Audubon’s birthday to the Riverside Oval Association and friends last week. A good time was had by all, I think, and the cake was delicious. Photos are from the same day: I walked around looking at some the Audubon Murals in…
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Audubon III
Welcome back to several ways of looking at John James Audubon. Lucy Bakewell was born in Burton-upon-Trent, Straffordshire, England, on January 18, 1787. Seventeen years later, by then translated to Pennsylvania with her family, she met her neighbor John James Audubon. They were married for 43 years beginning in 1808. Then she survived him by…
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Audubon II
There is darn little art without political economy. Welcome back to another way of looking at John James Audubon. In his book, Audubon’s Elephant, detailing the difficulties of getting the double elephant edition of Birds of America published in Britain, Duff Hart-Davis says Audubon’s portfolio weighed a hundred pounds. Hart-Davis doesn’t inform us that when Audubon referred to…
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Happy Birthday, John J.
It’s Audubon’s 232nd today. Backyard and Beyond will be noting this in several ways over the next couple of days. Some of you may be surprised to learn that John James Audubon retired to Manhattan. In 1841, upper New York County was still pretty wild, as the city more or less ended at 14th Street. Wishing…
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Audubon Part II
The second of three John James Audubon exhibits is up at the New-York Historical Society. These are the original watercolors JJA did for his printer in England. Go! (I snapped a few details before being busted by museum security; since I wasn’t using a flash, I thought it would be ok.)It was a curious experience…
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Audubon’s Aviary, Part I
The New-York Historical Society has begun it’s three year, three-part exhibit of John James Audubon’s preparatory studies for his masterwork. These were the watercolors that Audubon gave to his printer, Robert Havell, in London, who then made the prints for the multi-volume Birds of America. “Preparatory study” is an understatement, however, for these incredibly detailed…
Backyard and Beyond 