Word: birding
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Christmas Early Bird Show (trade show...
...become famous still seems incredible. At the outset, most of his contemporaries scoffed at this upstart crow with no known training in either art or ornithology. Audubon scoffed back. In 1824 he managed to antagonize the Philadelphia scientific community and could find no publisher for his swelling collection of bird paintings. Two years later, he departed for England, where, togged out in backwoods garb, he wowed the sophisticates, arranged a publishing deal and oversaw the realization of his dream...
...have never drawn from a stuffed specimen," Audubon claimed in 1828. "Nature must be seen first alive." Like nearly everything else he said about himself, this statement was, at best, a half-truth. Audubon killed thousands of birds; before photography and high-resolution binoculars, that was the only possible way to render accurate images of them. But before Audubon shot them, he watched his subjects intensively, noting how they moved and behaved, the plants or habitats they preferred. When he had his bird in hand, he used wires to arrange the specimen in a characteristic pose...
Audubon's bird illustrations have become part of the experience of living in America, available on calendars, coffee mugs and cd-roms. The Smithsonian exhibit traces these images back to their humble and extraordinary roots...
Finding a new species of bird or bug is a little like finding a new use for duct tape--nice but not earthshaking. Finding a new species of human ancestor, on the other hand, is always a big deal. That's why Spanish scientists spent three years studying fossils they discovered at Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain. They wanted to be sure of what they...