The Sacred Sacred Ibis
The ancient Greeks usually depicted Thoth—their god of writing, wisdom and magic—as having the head of a bird with a long, down-curving bill. Until the 1800s, Europeans thought that this …
What Color Is a Blue Jay?
Charles Darwin clearly took his job as naturalist on the 5-year-long (1831-36) Beagle voyage quite seriously. Based on his own detailed accounts, he took every opportunity to explore extensively wherever …
Early Birds
At the AOU (now AOS) meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2011, Peter Stettenheim [1] gave a talk on ‘Cultural Images of Birds: A neglected source of information’. He suggested that …
The Invisible Women
At next year’s annual AOS conference in Anchorage, Alaska, the role of women in ornithology will be one of the highlighted themes. This is an important initiative for several reasons, …
The Birds of …
Books on the birds of this or that region have been exceptionally popular for the last 200 years or more. Once travel to foreign lands became feasible—as early as the …
Joe Grinnell’s Notes
For at least 400 years, ornithologists—and presumably naturalists of every stripe—have kept notebooks recording each day’s observations from the field. In 17th century England, these were called ‘Commonplace Books’, rather …
A Great Store of Fowle
Four hundred and eight years ago this month—in August 1610—Henry Hudson and his crew of 21 on the tiny ship DISCOVERY entered Hudson’s namesake bay in search of a northwest …
An Australian Want Supplied
Possibly more so than in other branches of natural history, ornithology has had a long history of provincialism. For most of the last 500 years, most people who studied (and …
But Is It Art?
Big cities—maybe surprisingly—are good places to live if you are interested in natural history. While country folk have nature on their doorstep, city folk have to work a little harder …
Being Francis Willughby
Last week I posted a list of recently published books relevant to the history of ornithology. This week I will begin to review them, one at a time, as I …