The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness
Book by Kenn Kaufman
Avid Reader Press (Simon & Schuster). ix, 387p. hardbound with dust cover. $32.50. bibliography. index. 45 illustrations (most are full-page color paintings).
This splendid book is a penetrating examination of the many birds Audubon never saw and the possible reasons he didn’t. Some of the reasons are the birds simply were not in the places he was, and for others their range had not expanded to include those areas. For some still other species missing them seems inexplicable. But as Kaufman points out, Audubon and the other early American naturalists lacked field guides, binoculars, and had a very delayed, spotty mechanism for communication.
Kaufman looks carefully at the varied places Audubon explored. One of the great charms here are the attractive color paintings by him, done slavishly and on purpose in the style Audubon might have done of some of the birds that great artist missed, including setting them in vegetation appropriate to Audubon’s travels. Kaufman is quick to denigrate these efforts, but I think they are pretty darn good, and what a fabulous, creative idea to do this in the first place.
Kaufman also gives summaries of the work of other early naturalists, especially Alexander Wilson, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, the Bartrams, Bachman, Catesby, et al. Also examined are recent sources of confusion, such as Bicknell’s & Gray Cheeked thrushes, the varied Red Crossbill vocalizations. Rivalries, jealousy, and hostility characterized some of the ornithologists’ relationships, especially as regards Audubon.
Audubon was not innocent of exaggerations and falsehoods. Not without blemish, he was at times a slave owner and had an interest in the skullduggery of eugenics: phrenology. “Unfortunately, Audubon has a legacy of stretching the truth beyond the breaking point - sometimes exaggerating, sometimes apparently making things up out of thin air.” (Kaufman, p. 7.) “In trying to pin down details of Audubon’s life, we find ourselves in a dimly lit hall of mirrors.” (Kaufman, p. 12.)
One should not be too judgmental about some of the confusion back in those times, such as Audubon considering sandhill cranes to be the immatures of whooping cranes. There are some issues of our current times that are still not completely worked out.
Recent complexes that have challenged our contemporaries include the Traill’s flycatcher(s), western flycatchers, the 2 populations of willets, the various seaside sparrows, green-winged teal, western grebes, great blue vs. great white herons, various forms of cattle egret, surf scoter, the king/clapper rails, the herring gulls, the sandwich terns, the whip-poor-wills, the crows, brown-headed nuthatches, marsh wrens, meadowlarks, solitary vireos, etc.
Kaufman discusses some of these in the context of the “mistakes” or lack of understanding by Audubon and the early naturalists. Sets of Audubon’s Birds of America, the original double elephant folio, and there are not many still extant, have sold for over $10,000,000.
As Kaufman remarks “Audubon’s reputation was built on his best work … and his best work is phenomenal” (p. 337). It was a pleasure to see and hear Kaufman discuss much of this at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University on May 22, and to talk with him briefly. The Birds that Audubon Missed is a unique look, deeply-researched, of early (and contemporary) American ornithology. Highly recommended. Should be spell-binding for many of us.