German Ornithological Treasures
Johann Friederich Naumann (1780-1857) is probably the best known of the early German ornithologists, and was one of the founders of scientific ornithology in continental Europe. Naumann collected birds and …
Uncle Bill’s Eggs
Yesterday (12 November) marked the anniversary of the discovery, in 1912, of the remains of Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole. The story of that …
Bird Names Then and Now
Where did the English names for birds come from (and where are they going)? I discussed a few weeks ago some of the onomatopoeic bird names (cuckoo, for example), but …
What Is a Species?
Guest Post Karl Schulze-Hagen, Mönchengladbach, Germany The very first paper published in the Journal für Ornithologie, in 1853, was written by the Dresden zoologist Ludwig Reichenbach (1793-1879). That paper {On …
The First Penguins
While preparing a talk [1] last week about the early history of ornithology in North America, I wondered who might have been the first to describe and identify a bird …
Discovering Francis Willughby
Francis Willughby (1635-1672), an English ornithologist, is far from well-known. He died at just 36, so his groundbreaking books on birds, fish and insects were all completed and subsequently published …
Small Groups of Men
Just a week ago the Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft (DO-G; German Ornithologists’ Society) celebrated its 150th anniversary at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Halle (Saale) near Leipzig, Germany. The DO-G was …
The Sparrow Question
When I visited England at the beginning of last month, the English House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) was notable for its scarcity. I spent a week in London, Sheffield and the …
Snow in the Mountains
I had no sooner posted last week’s piece about David and Elizabeth Lack in the Pyrenees when there were barn swallows everywhere in the Biros Valley. Until then I had …
Grandeur and Novelty
How do small land birds migrate past high mountain ranges? This is not a question that has often been asked in the Americas because most of the big mountain ranges …