Google's Avian Doodle Celebrates John James Audubon's 226th Birthday (PICTURE)

April 26 marks the 226th birthday of ornithologist John James Audubon.

Celebrating this lover of birds, Google has created a custom doodle featuring avian specimens from around North America.

Audubon was born in what is now Haiti and spent much of his youth in France. He arrived in America in 1803 and lived on a farm owned by Quaker relatives in Pennsylvania. Here, Audubon fell in love with nature and spent much of his time exploring and studying his surroundings.

Audubon's seminal work, Birds of North America, featured 435 realistic life-sized painting of the wildlife he observed while traveling the continent. The project was so costly that the young naturalist traveled to Europe for funding and delivered for-pay lectures in France and Britain. Eleven years in the making, the catalogue was completed in 1838.

''These were the largest single sheets produced at the time,'' Francis Wahlgren, the head of Christie's books department in New York, told the New York Times. ''You can almost feel the feathers on these birds [...] These plates are the icons of ornithology."

In 1905, an environmental conservation society formed, taking Audubon's name. Today, the Audubon Society is one of the oldest groups of its kind.

See the Google doodle (below) and visit Google's homepage on April 26 to see the logo for yourself.

LOOK:

Comments

[kristielopez]

06:45 AM on 04/27/2011

George Bird Grinnell founded the first Audubon Society in 1886, not 1905 http://bit.ly/dVohV0

[RButler]

05:08 AM on 04/27/2011

I love birds.  Despite the fact that they are related to dinosaurs, they have a quality about them that delights me- they have nothing going on other than being birds, a kind of pure 'beingness'. 
 
I know that sounds weird. They don't seem to have acquired the neuroses from us that our other pets have.  They just sing, fly, mate, lay eggs and poop on our cars without any guilt. Gotta love 'em. 

[azatrox]

12:32 AM on 04/28/2011

Actually they ARE dinosaurs. Saying they're related to dinosaurs is like saying humans are related to apes. Sorry, nit picking biologist here :-)

[RButler]

12:47 AM on 04/28/2011

Really?  I've never heard that stated that way before.  "...saying humans are related to apes".  So, if not by your statement, 'humans ARE apes', n'est-ce pas? 
 
dinosaur: definition
 
1: any of a group (Dinosauria) of extinct often very large chiefly terrestrial carnivorous or herbivorous reptiles of the Mesozoic era
 
2: any of various large extinct reptiles (as ichthyosaurs) other than the true dinosaurs
 
3: one that is impractically large, out-of-date, or obsolete

[AgingLady]

08:25 PM on 04/26/2011

Thank you Google, this was great. Have enjoyed it all day.

[IndyGuy]

06:46 PM on 04/26/2011

I love the Blue Heron that's pictured! We have them now in the pond behind our house and down by a creek close by. One day my dog and I were walking down by the creek when we scared one that was trying to get lunch. He took off right over us and you could feel the wind rushing by as he flapped his wings. We even eyed each other as he left. I was totally amazed! My wife and I love sitting out by the pond and woods seeing all of the awesome ducks, geese, Herons and a lot of song birds around our area. We are so lucky to see our feathered friends almost every day!

[yakmeat]

11:57 AM on 04/26/2011

An elderly friend gave my wife (a quintessential bird nerd) a vintage hardcover copy of the "Baby Elephant Folio" by Audubon. The illustrations are truly masterful.

[Aimee Bellefleur Hogan]

04:42 PM on 04/26/2011

Nice!

[Max Shelby]

11:47 AM on 04/26/2011

The irony is so think you could cut it with a knife.....

Audubon Shot All The Birds He Painted.

He then used wires to pose the corpses of these hawks, falcons, partridges, sparrows, woodpeckers, and other winged creatures before putting brush to canvas. In one diary entry, he writes about sneaking up on a large group of sleeping pelicans and blasting two of them before his gun was jammed and the two awakened survivors took off (he was disappointed that he dint get to kill them all.) And when hunting snoozing avians in the wild was too much trouble, he resorted to other methods. He once bought a caged eagle, killed it, then captured its likeness.

One of Audubon's biographers, Duff Hart-Davis, reveals: "The rarer the bird, the more eagerly he pursued it, never apparently worrying that by killing it he might hasten the extinction of its kind."

[azatrox]

12:35 AM on 04/28/2011

Yep, and he didn't kill just one for a painting; it was not unusual to kill dozens. Ultimately, Audubon killed hundreds, if not thousands, of birds over his lifetime. Bird lovers should read Audubon's autobiography (basically his field notes); it's pretty disturbing.

[themanticore]

11:29 AM on 04/26/2011

Does anyone know what the blue throated bird fourth from the left is? I know the rest of the birds, but can't find that one at all

[getsit]

11:46 AM on 04/26/2011

I can't find it either.

[themanticore]

05:41 PM on 04/26/2011

Found it! It's the Great Crested Flycatcher.

[Jonathan Webber]

11:06 AM on 04/26/2011

Live in Florida? Make a difference!

Stay connected to Audubon of Florida:

http://www.AudubonofFloridaNews.org
http://www.facebook.com/AudubonofFlorida
http://www.twitter.com/FL_Audubon

[Lily Mahaas]

11:01 AM on 04/26/2011

See John James Audubon Painting Collection Photos:

http://goo.gl/gpEjj