Audubon's Louisiana waterthrush

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my favorite Audubon's:

Once known by the odd sobriquet aquatic wagtail (aquatic because it likes to be near water and wagtail because it bobs its tail), it was Audubon who gave this bird its more lyrical name still in use today:

Louisiana waterthrush

"Much and justly as the song of the Nightingale is admired, I am inclined, after having listened to it, to pronounce it in no degree superior to that of the Louisiana Water Thrush...I have taken the liberty of naming this first songster of our groves after the country which has afforded me my greatest pleasure...The Common Water Thrush is at all times and in every situation shy even to wildness. The Louisiana Water Thrush is so gentle and unsuspicious as to allow a person to approach within a few yards of it.”

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, yet 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 printed on handmade paper measuring 29.5 X 39.5 inches. Assembled into four volumes, it's massive.

I'll be speaking at Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge tomorrow at 1 p.m. about the "Making of Audubon's Birds of America," a most remarkable feat.

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