Audubon's snowy egret

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my favorite Audubon's:

Snowy heron (today, snowy egret)

In my book Ghost Birds, I write about snowy egrets. By the early 1900s, like the roseate spoonbill, they were almost lost due to plume-hunting. E.A. McIlhenny, the heir to, of all things, the Tabasco Sauce empire is credited with single-handedly bringing snowy egrets back to Louisiana and a man-made rookery/wildlife sanctuary he created called "Bird City." One hundred years before that Audubon writes:

"This beautiful species is a constant resident in Florida and Louisiana, where thousands are seen during winter, and where many remain during the breeding season. 


"While migrating, they fly both by night and by day, in loose flocks of from twenty to a hundred individuals, sometimes arranging themselves in a broad front, then forming lines, and again proceeding in a straggling manner. They keep perfectly silent, and move at a height seldom exceeding a hundred yards. Their flight is light, undetermined as it were, yet well sustained, and performed by regular flappings, as in other birds of the tribe.”

By Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.

Why is Audubon relevant? Because in addition to his artistic talent, perseverance and derring-do, he was a d--- good naturalist. A lot of what we know today about birds, the audacious, often farouche, John James Audubon was the first to put in print.

On January 20, a complete first edition boxed-set of Audubon's The Birds of America including his five-volume Ornithological Biography will be auctioned in New York at Christie's. There are only 120 known copies of this huge work. As big as a coffee table, weighing over 200 pounds, it contains 435 hand-colored engravings (depicting 497 species) printed on handmade paper measuring 29.5 X 39.5 inches. Assembled into four volumes, it's massive.

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