Robert Francis

Great question I haven't seen any but haven't done too much looking either!

Eighty percent of the time I get excited about hearing a bird song I don't recognize it's actually a catbird. I love this description from Florence Merriam, 1889.

An image meme re-enacting the coffee shop scene from Role Models with Paul Rudd discussing Great Egrets, Medium Egrets and Little Egrets and their size overlaps and conundrums.

saw an opportunity and i took it

Omg soo good

Right? Like, why can't you appreciate me for ME rather than for the fact that my size is in between that of better-known small and large egrets

what can i get started for ya

Seeking: books on gilded age / progressive era social movements. Any recommendations??

A hundred years ago this is what people were thinking about when there was a blizzard
birdhistory.substack.com/p/charity-to...

Chunk Ducks, Blatherskites, Butterballs, and Slug-toots These used to be folk names for American birds. Where did they all go?

This is from The Audubon Magazine, June 1887. I wrote a whole article about folk names for birds, there's plenty more there!

here's 36 names that people used to call the Northern Flicker. personal favorites include yucker and tapping-bird

Federal Holiday for bird migration is a great idea.

How Robins Got Their Name Growing up in eastern South Dakota, winters were harsh, dark, and long, often lasting until deep into April.

wrote a whole thing about this!
birdhistory.substack.com/p/how-robins...

Wat

corset-burning: quite hardcore?

Also, corsets: made from whale bones??

I had a conversation with my friend Grant Mulligan at Progress Accumulation about the role birds have played in America’s history, not just for the birders and ornithologists, but for everyone who’s called America home. Give it a listen!
substack.com/home/post/p-...

I read a passage about street urchins (c. 1886) and thought "we really don't talk about street urchins any more" but google suggests we're actually talking about them more than ever. Any theories?

"it was a different time" etc etc admit it we've just grown weak

Obsessed with this journal for publishing caricatures of “prominent ornithologists,” which no academic today is brave enough to do

Really interesting article on the intersection of reconstruction-era politics, Mardi Gras, and birds

Ornithology X Mardi Gras X Art history thread — highly recommended

Oh damn you're definitely right, that's amazing. Thank you!!

Audubon at Carnival: Party Like It’s 1873 Birds took over New Orleans in the middle of the state’s worst political crisis

I did a full write-up here. Laissez les bons temps rouler
birdhistory.substack.com/p/audubon-at...

This float speaks most clearly to elite White opinions of the state’s political situation. A collection of black birds - a vulture, crow, rook, ravens, a bat, and possibly a smooth-billed ani - gathered at Louisiana’s statehouse, mocking African American legislators.

The most disturbing image I've come across after years of research is this one, playing on the double meaning of the word Turkey. An Ottoman sultan is presented with the head of an executed slave.

Or this one, showing a politician fox winning over a crowd of ducks, geese, and chickens, which he'll soon be eating.

Several of the floats were clear political allegories, like this one showing eagles representing the US, Mexico, and France watching the eagles of Russia (two heads) and Austria (one head) square off.

Here's one with a cardinal (get it?) performing the wedding ceremony for two doves, while a roseate spoonbill looks on.

Here's one showing the mockingbird's choir, all with birds known for their songs - a lark, bluebird, canary, and one which several newspapers ID'd as a Cape May warbler, a species incredibly few non-birders today would recognize.

This one has a peregrine falcon reading a newspaper to a bobwhite, and to a pileated, red-headed, and ivory-billed woodpecker. There's a fourth woodpecker species that's a little more mysterious.

What’s most incredible to me about the floats is their fidelity to identifiable species - these aren’t generic birds. Like this one clearly shows common and belted kingfishers, a dodo, oystercatcher, tufted puffin, boat-billed heron, great auk, and frigatebird.