Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Audubon Catalog


Stumbled across this site while trying to help my sister locate representations of Whip-poor-wills. One of the original Aududbon catalogs in it's entirety for you to peruse. Stunning illustrations, and a wealth of information on many birds i didn't even know existed.

Case in point- the Carolina Parakeet seen above. Made extinct by dinner plates and ladies fashion.

The Audubon Catalog

4 comments:

dRchunkerton said...

believe it or not i'm actually familiar. my mother's parents are bird watchers- my grandmother has similar prints in her dining room.

there are very few people our age interested in the natural world. i don't me that we don't enjoy the outdoors, many of us do, but how many of us can identify plants or animals even in our own neighborhood? i had no idea what the "stick plants" in my yard were until my grandmother visited. she walked around my yard and recognized various plants while my mom listened. apparently my mom was into horticulture before she was into booze.

so we are ignorant about the very things that grow around us, yet we can talk at length about a record or movie made by some asshole 1000 miles away.

it's the modern order, and i suppose there's nothing necessarily wrong with it. but maybe it would hurt to go boy scout style. recognizing finches and shit.

Herbert Frundle IV said...

i'm into finches. was a boy scout. confused by daily living. enjoy simple beauty. maybe we've been fighting too long.

all the years lived in aiken, i can count on one hand friends that have even been vocal about taking a walk in hitchcock let alone being regular about it.

shit is exciting.

dRchunkerton said...

it's true i'm excited about hitchcock and nature in general, but my point is i am still ignorant as shit about it. I know almost nothing about flora and fauna, and i become lost frighteningly easy.

For instanace- yesterday i decided to take a short jog (20 mins) in the woods off aiken estates. I thought i'd follow mr. fletchers ride, a narrow trail running along the side of cuthbert ridge, and ultimately cut over onto the high ground of the ridge itself for the trip home. it worked okay, and i would have been fine except i misidentified a marker, and stupidly turned around and walked the wrong way a couple of miles, before realizing the sun was on the wrong side of me. i ended up picking up the orginal trail and backtracking home.

i guess i need a fucking compass. or a map.

Rickles said...

plants are boring, but i do enjoy hanging out with people in nature from time to time.