Audobon

What a life! Born illegitimate to French parents in Haiti and raised in France, John James Audobon (1785-1851) escaped to America with a false passport to avoid being drafted in the army for the Napoleonic Wars. In his new home he became an outdoorsman, ornithologist, and painter. His seminal work was The Birds of America, a collection of 435 life-size paintings – portraits of every bird then known in America - that was printed and sold to subscribers in installments. It is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever. Along the way he spotted and identified 25 new species of birds.

Married to Lucy Bakewell, Audobon was a dedicated family man who raised two sons. An entrepreneur who started a string of stores in Kentucky, he lost everything during economic hard times. Unbeaten, he took up portrait drawing at five dollars a head. Eventually he raised the equivalent of several million dollars to publish his paintings.

His paintings of birds are admired for their beauty as well as their accuracy of detail. He often shows them active in their natural environment. Some of the birds in his work, including the passenger pigeon and the Carolina parakeet, have since gone extinct.

Audobon's life reads like a novel, but for me his writings about birds are equally fascinating. In a poignant essay he describes the arrival of a great flock of passenger pigeons in a farm where many are slaughtered. He writes at length about the peregrine falcon (which he calls great-footed hawk), describing in detail its pursuit and disposition of prey, and observing that the falcon would arrive at the sound of shooting and snatch birds that hunters had shot.

About the Carolina parakeet, the only parrot native to North America, he wrote, “our parakeets are very rapidly diminishing in number.” Sure enough, today it is extinct. His detailed description of the bird's flight and behaviour is a rare documentation of an extinct species.

He describes the flight of the barred owl as “smooth, light, noiseless and capable of being greatly protracted.” Almost two centuries later, this author watched barred owls flying in Florida and can attest to the veracity of these words.

While passerine birds were easier to observe on land, water birds were another matter. To study them up close, Audobon travelled far north to Labrador to their nesting ground, travelling on a chartered ship. His notes from this trip, published as Labrador Journal, are an exciting blend of exploration, ornithology, science and anthropology.

Sometimes, though, his writing approached tall tales. For example he refers to a popular belief that the peregrine falcon's only fluid intake is the blood of its prey. How would anyone believe that?

Since this was before photography, how did he create such accurate drawings? He shot his birds, using fine pellets, and strung them up into lifelike pose using elaborate armatures and wiring. Then he drew them.

We take leave of Audobon with a parting note for birders. Audobon studied the migration patterns of small birds, called eastern phoebes, by tying silver strings to their feet to see if they returned the next year. This is the first recorded case of bird ringing, a common technique today for studying migration.

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