Audubon's goldfinch

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....my favorite Audubon's:

Yellow bird, (today, American goldfinch)

What the heck. I still have a few more favorite Audubon's I want to share. In the case of the goldfinch, he accurately portrayed the species of the plant it's most closely associated with, the thistle. Audubon writes about its flight pattern: 

" The flight of the yellow bird is performed in deep curved lines, alternately rising and falling, after each propelling motion of its wings…uttering two or three notes whilst ascending.”

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.

Audubon ultimately painted 497 species of birds for his masterwork, The Birds of America, thus establishing a new number for how many can be found in this country (today we know the number is over 600). During the process he identified 25 new species and numerous sub-species unknown to science.

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