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Roseate spoonbill
A species we almost lost because of the plume hunters and the popularity of those pink feathers. Audubon writes:
"This beautiful and singular bird, although a constant resident in the southern extremities of the peninsula of Florida, seldom extends its journeys in an eastern direction beyond the State of North Carolina...The Roseate Spoonbill is found for the most part along the marshy and muddy borders of estuaries, the mouths of rivers, ponds, or sea islands or keys partially overgrown with bushes, and perhaps still more commonly along the shores of those singular salt-water bayous so abundant within a mile or so of the shores, where they can reside and breed in perfect security in the midst of an abundance of food.”
"This beautiful and singular bird, although a constant resident in the southern extremities of the peninsula of Florida, seldom extends its journeys in an eastern direction beyond the State of North Carolina...The Roseate Spoonbill is found for the most part along the marshy and muddy borders of estuaries, the mouths of rivers, ponds, or sea islands or keys partially overgrown with bushes, and perhaps still more commonly along the shores of those singular salt-water bayous so abundant within a mile or so of the shores, where they can reside and breed in perfect security in the midst of an abundance of food.”
By John James Audubon the naturalist, from his Ornithological Biography.
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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