Chris Pistole, a park naturalist at the Ernie Miller Nature Center of Olathe, KS, became John James Audubon at a presentation held at Pittsburg State University on January 26. "Audubon" is demonstrating his illustration of Columbia migratoria to an audience of "British scientific scholars."
Held yesterday, Jan. 26, 2006, it was more than just a meeting of the Sperry-Galligar Audubon Society. The group was transformed into British scientific scholars who had convened to listen to a lecture not by naturalist and first time impersonator Chris Pistole but by the eminent illustrator of nature, John James Audubon. The time was 1827 and the place was London, England. Later on the audience became "voyeurs" as "Audubon" in his chamber is seen writing a letter to his wife Lucy who has remained in Louisiana while her husband has sought engravers as well as buyers for some of the 400 engravings worth about one million dollars that he eventually created.
"Audubon" gets the attention of his audience by describing the "inherent dangers" in the life of a naturalist. On one of his adventures not only did lightning strike his horse dead but in search of a great horned owl on a willow bar he relates how he needed help from his companions in order to be pulled out from the quicksand in which he had settled.
Using his artwork to describe some of the birds found in America at the time, "Audubon" points to his first plate, that of his wild turkey that he says is quite abundant in Kentucky. He calls attention to its beard and the spurs found on its legs. And the audience laughs when he describes how in the fall the young pecked at by the males in the flock fall into the river above which they are crossing, how they row with their wings to shore, and how there's nothing quite as funny as a soggy turkey extracting itself from the water.
He continues these folksy descriptions when talking about the colorful Carolina parrot or parakeet that while beneficial in eliminating the noxious weed, the cockleburr, does not discriminate between it and the farmers' crops--except, their corn. He says, he doesn't know why they don't find corn a delicacy. However, labeled a pest, he says that they are readily killed.
Noting the decline in numbers of this parrot species that in immense flocks would swarm the farmers' fields, "Audubon" went off on a tangent.
"I'm concerned about the loss of woodlands in America," the naturalist said. "What will become of some of her species?"
In his concern "Audubon" probably was not including Columbia migratoria. He said he saw barges loaded with these wild pigeons hauled into New York in 1803 and that they were selling for one cent apiece. "How can so many live in one area?" he posed.
He described his trip in 1813 from Henderson to Louisville in which he watched a "smudge on the horizon." "How odd," he thought, until he realized that the smudge was growing into a huge flock of pigeons, so large that it eclipsed the sun. For three days this flock continued unabated, he mused, with "their droppings [descending] like snow." He estimated that they were traveling at 60 miles per hour like that of large ducks and how they seemed to have a deep purple look in the sunset. He saw that their dung covered the ground two feet deep and where they alighted "branches were broken as if a tornado had passed by". But, he assured everybody that their ability to quadruple their numbers in one season would not render them extinct. He observed how some pigeons were engaging in billing. He concluded that part of the courtship between the male and female was when they opened their beaks gently, turned transversely and fed each other.
INSPIRATIONAL MATERIAL: John James Audubon: The Making of an American by Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Rhodes; Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America by William Souder
How this particular British scientific community reacted to Audubon's empirical observations one can only guess. "My artwork is not scientific," he admitted, but he believed it was a "better rendering of birds in nature." He downplayed his critics whom he labeled "detractors."
"I make no apologies for my drawings," "Audubon" said, as he considered the number of favorite bird species he had. In countering the criticism that his raptors were so fierce and that he was a bit too gory in his depiction, he retorted, "This is life!"
Although he was introduced as someone born in Louisiana, during the question and answer period that followed he received no comment to the contrary. Once again he had succeeded in pulling the wool over his audience's eyes. John James Audubon, as the boy born in what was once Haiti the illegitimate son of of a French sea captain and plantation owner and his French mistress, he would continue to remain a secret. Go Back | 
