Happy Birthday, John James Audubon

[filkertom]

On this date in 1785. Pretty amazing dude, actually -- he traveled the country for decades, drawing and painting every type of bird he could find, until his eyesight went. The Audubon Society is doing good work in environmental protection to this day.

What are your favorite birds? I should be more of a bird-watcher than I am; I love watching 'em. Especially hummingbirds, and various raptors in flight (I've been fortunate enough to see eagles in the wild a few times). And almost any kind of birdsong.

Comments

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Your description of yourself sounds a lot like me, mostly because I am a complete dilettante when it comes to birds. I love to listen to them singing, and flying, take pictures of them. I have a bird feeder I called Kitty TV in the yard outside the bedroom window, since the cats love watching them too.
My absolutely favorite thing though is to watch the big birds, raptor or not, soar and ride thermals around the sky. They're beautiful, and it's so relaxing.

[sophia9847.livejournal.com]

We get a lot of redtailed hawks around here, and I am pretty sure there's a nest in either our backyard or our neighbors's. they're lovely to watch, and we don't have to stress about rodents! :-)

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Cardinals are my favorite. I've had a cardinal couple in my backyard for several years.

Next, goldfinches and chickadees.

It's always a thrill to see the neighborhood hawks, even though I know there's a chance they'll go after "my" songbirds.

[redbeardsghost.livejournal.com]

Anything with big wings is a joy to watch flying, 'though around here they are most likely turkey buzzards. My favorite medium-sized birds are red-winged blackbirds. My favorite thing, though, is to watch a large flock of birds in flight, all moving roughly in unison, but with small groups breaking off constantly.

[sdelmonte]

Being a city-dweller, I see few birds aside from pigeons, sparrows and crows. I do occasionally see a cardinal, robin or oriole, though.

But the bird I wish I could see in the wild is a bald eagle. Is there a more majestic creature?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

It ain't the wild, but, seriously: check your local zoos. Some have bald eagle areas, with netting to keep them inside but lots of room for them to fly, and usually mirrors over their nests. I saw my first eagles at the Cincinnati Zoo, in a football-field-sized area. Fantastic.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Yes, everyone come visit the Cincinnati Zoo! It's a neat place :)

[cainle-bean.livejournal.com]

I have been lucky enough to see bald eagles at one of their nesting sites. They are beautiful. I enjoy watching most birds in flight. I did enjoy the company of the mockingbird that took up residence in my grandparents place. Every morning she would be at the birdfeeder.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I like any bird that comes near my windows and entertains my cats. (Don't worry, the cats are strictly indoors. Not that they would know what to do with a bird if they caught one.) With that in mind, the more variety of birds that come, the better.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I got to rescue a young bird this morning: I don't know what it was, but its beak had a lot of bright yellow on it and it squawked loudly.

(It flew-hopped into the garage as Dale was leaving, and huddled itself under a pile of trash from the remodeling. As that was neither safe nor conducive to its being able to leave again, I got to carefully move bits and pieces of stuff to the other side of the garage until I could carefully remove the bird and put it back outside.

Where it promptly darted under the edge of the column, which was also not a good safe spot, so I spent another 10-15 minutes prying away bits of rotten wood until I could get my hand back around the bird.

The second time, I moved it to a sheltered spot near the trees, away from the house. When I came back out to check on it, it wasn't there, so I'm going to hope it was sufficiently fledged to get back to its nest, rather than having been killed by a neighborhood cat.

It looked mostly fledged, as opposed to the last baby I rescued, which had almost no feathers at all and ended up at the emergency vets after it sat under the trees crying for 20 minutes and nothing came to see to it.)

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Penguins.

Is anyone shocked?

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

I've always been fond of the Go-Away bird:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go-away-bird

I remember seeing a piece of documentary footage of a native quietly, carefully stalking an antelope (or other edible critter), only to have it frightened off by the loud "GO-AWAY!" cry of the Go-Away bird. As the critter ran off, the bird continued with what sounded like raucous laughter. I couldn't help but picture the native's disappointed family saying, "Oh, no! Go-Away bird for dinner AGAIN?"

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Crows, seagulls, these little brown things that seem to have representatives in Seattle all year round...well, I'd say anything except pigeons. Pigeons are just there.

I was rather surprised one morning when something went VOWM out of the sky, picked up a pigeon, and dragged it into a tree. I'm still not sure what it was, but birds of prey are cool, even when I don't see them grabbing breakfast when I'm on my way to work.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

I like watching almost any kind of bird, even when they're not flying. Watching crows trying to figure something out is fun. The exception here is seagulls. In flight they are graceful, on land they are rude and greedy.

Two birds I'd like to see in the wild are Bower birds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPbWJPsBPdA) and lyre birds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y)

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, Audubon acquired his subjects by shooting them. Otherwise he would have found it difficult to get the detail that appears in his paintings. This does not diminish the magnificence of his work; at the time, there were no endangered bird species in the Americas that I know of.

[gelfling-flys.livejournal.com]

That was the way at the time. We still had birds back then. If I recall correctly, he was unhappy about it later in life.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I like mockingbird song, and the little buttonhook hop they do from high perches.

I like the undulating way goldfinches fly (not that they aren't beautiful otherwise).

Peregrines are just gorgeous. I don't see them often around here, but got within a dozen feet of a perching peregrine once.

Red-winged blackbirds. Any kind of swift - that swept-back silhouette in flight is wonderful. Cardinals. Downy woodpeckers. Killdeer.

(I live on one of the primary migration routes, and love it.)

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

I thought Audobon worked from birds he shot so they'd keep still? They didn't get to do the chat show circuit afterwards.....
Of course they weren't so rare then....
not before he shot 'em....

[darkwolf69.livejournal.com]

And, he lived in my home town for awhile. We have a park near where he had a general store. :)

[shala-beads.livejournal.com]

magpies. We have some great viewing areas, and several times a year we go out to the place in my icon, it's called Potter's Marsh and it's a great place to see sea birds and bald eagles. I also always get happy when the geese come back. Not a lovely bird song, but it's a sign that winter is over and we get our brief but lovely summer.
But magpies and ravens are my hands down favorites. Fortunately, I can go on my front porch to see them most days.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

We like near a large city park, so our bird life is pretty varied. There are a couple of owls active near of house, and they're rather nifty. I know one a is a Barred Owl.

[gelfling-flys.livejournal.com]

It is funny just how diffent our lives and daily views are. We live on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. I can write here on lj because there is a metal dish in the yard that talks to space.(space beams to the n.o.c. on texas, texas sends it out to you). This is a long way of saying that we live in the forest and we still have birds.(on the other hand, I can not allow my three year old to run out of sight because of cougars.)

Bald eagles circled our garden today. It was cool. We have different types of owls that we hear at night. We have different kinds of woodpeckers in the garden.