These are the stories of the birds of America – and the people who named them, ate them, studied them, and saved them.
In December of 1882, a gaggle of 22 seasick and presumably very confused ostriches stepped out of an ocean liner and onto the docks of New York City. For the last several months, these hapless birds had been making the arduous sea voyage from Cape Town to Buenos Aires, and then to New York. As…
In the precarious early days of the American colonies, European settlers mostly deemed birds worthy of attention to the degree that they could help them scratch out a subsistence. Yet even though it had no practical use, the miniscule hummingbird immediately captivated colonizers with its “variable glittering Colours”[1] and pugnacious behavior. In 1680 one educated…
On June 26, 1826, John James Audubon sat aboard the cotton schooner Delos off of Florida’s Gulf coast, en route from New Orleans to Liverpool, where he was hoping to find a publisher for his extensive portfolio of paintings of American birds.[1] On this particular day, the winds were still, leaving Audubon’s boat to rock…
The first waves of Spanish conquistadores pillaging their way through the Yucatan in search of gold and glory found another treasure, in the form of a large, meaty, and mostly flightless bird that had been domesticated by the Aztec people and their ancestors. The closest thing in the Spanish experience to the huehxōlō-tl, as the…
The end of the 19th century was a devastating period for America’s birds. Market hunting at an industrial scale, combined with the leveling of forests, draining of swamps, and plowing under of grasslands threatened one species after another with complete destruction. While some species stepped back from the brink with the help of increasingly strict…
Growing up in eastern South Dakota, winters were harsh, dark, and long, often lasting until deep into April. Sometimes it would snow in May. While the first snow day was always a treat, by the time February rolled around, I was ready for winter to be over. At that time, I didn’t know the names…