The Ivory Billed Woodpecker and John James Audubon

Audubon has been called artist, ornithologist, naturalist, hunter, and frontiersman. It must also be acknowledged that he enslaved people and held white supremacist views. The illegitimate son of a French ship's captain, Jean Jacques Audubon was born on Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in 1785. Following the death of his mistress, the senior Audubon returned to Nantes, France with his young son. A natural explorer, Audubon preferred to hone his powers of observation in the French countryside rather than engage in formal education. He started collecting and drawing specimens at an early age. His father sent him to property he owned in Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, in 1803, where his skills as a self-taught naturalist and artist grew. 

Audubon attempted various business ventures, including establishing a dry-goods store and teaching dancing in pursuits that took him from Pennsylvania to Kentucky to Louisiana. However, birds were his passion. He ultimately determined to identify and paint as many specimens as he could acquire, bringing them to life by wiring them into lifelike positions thereby perfecting a means by which he was able to capture images "drawn from nature." Audubon himself did not travel far west to secure specimens, but instead received them from naturalists and explorers.

In 1824, Audubon returned to Philadelphia intending to have prints made from his many paintings of birds. Philadelphians were faithful to Alexander Wilson's illustrations and perceived Audubon’s work as a threat to the continued publication of Wilson's Birds. Audubon traveled to Great Britain and contracted the services of publisher W. H. Lizars, who created the first ten plates from Audubon's work. Following a strike in this studio, Audubon turned to Robert Havell to finish the production of Birds of America in London.

Several of his drawings, including those of the Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet, and Ivory-billed Woodpecker, represent birds that were abundant during Audubon’s time and became extinct in the 20th century. These images and bird biographies constitute primary source accounts of each specimen’s behavior and habitat now serve as primary source accounts that are invaluable to scientists as they were “drawn from nature.” 

Audubon was a “citizen scientist” who contributed to the body of knowledge available  in the 19th century by documenting the likenesses and habitats of over 400 birds. Though not always revered as an ornithologist, Audubon's many accolades and induction to learned societies of the time are testimony to his contributions to the scientific community. Several of his affiliations are stated proudly on the title page of Birds of America. 

John James Audubon  died in New York, New York, on January 27, 1851.

In this artist’s book, Sarah Nicholls presents her interpretations of selected extinct birds and provides text to accompany a series of woodcuts and polymer plates produced in New York at the Center for Book Arts. Included are the Dodo, Labrador Duck, Seychelles Parakeet, Wake Island Rail, Norfolk Island Kaka, Spotted Green Pigeon, Spectacled Cormorant, Tahitian Red Billed Rail, The Great Auk, and Moa Moa, among others.

Sarah Nicholls (Visual artist) (Artist).
A Field Guide to Extinct Birds. [New York]: Sarah Nicholls, 2015.

Lehigh University Catalog Record: https://asa.lib.lehigh.edu/asa/Record/10733076

This book, intended for a juvenile audience, serves as an introduction to the concept of extinction. Using the Ivory-billed Woodpecker as an example, Hoose tells the story of generations of Americans who first hunted and then tried to preserve this majestic bird. Spanning two hundred years of history, Hoose references bird artists like John James Audubon, collectors, and scientists, in their quest to save the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. 

The Race to Save the Lord God Bird is the winner of the 2005 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2005 Bank Street - Flora Stieglitz Award.

Phillip M. Hoose (1947- )
The Race to Save the Lord God Bird.; New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2004.

Lehigh University Catalog Record: https://asa.lib.lehigh.edu/asa/Record/887290