A New Take on North America’s Most Famous Birder

In Kenn Kaufman’s introduction to his 2024 book, The Birds That Audubon Missed, he describes the expedition to Labrador (or what was called Labrador at the time, but is now the easternmost part of Quebec) that John James Audubon took in 1833 and his subsequent discovery of Lincoln’s Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii).

Kaufman writes:

On the surface, the story seems straightforward. An expedition goes to a relatively little-known region. In these new surroundings, thanks to the keen senses of the master naturalist, they discover a bird that no scientist had seen before. Just the kind of result the expedition meant to achieve.

In reality, though, practically everything about this story is wrong or misleading. (pp. 6–7)

Kaufman’s book is not a biography. It’s an exploration of a historical period and a group of 19th century naturalists that are often mythologized. But mythologies tend to veer away from fact. “Unfortunately, Audubon has a legacy of stretching the truth beyond the breaking point—sometimes exaggerating, sometimes apparently making things up out of thin air” (p. 7).

In his book, Kaufman looks at a “time of a great gap. Indigenous knowledge of nature in eastern North America must have been rich and deep, at one time, but much of that had been fragmented or swept aside by the dawn of the 19th century. Western or European science, trailing along behind the colonists, had barely begun to write its own versions of natural history here” (p. 16).

History is not immutable, and it’s all the more interesting for it. It’s a good thing we have people like Kaufman willing to return to it again and again and again.

The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American West (Avid Reader Press, 2024) is the OFNC Book Club Pick for February and March.

The book club will be meeting to discuss the book on Tuesday, March 24, 2026 at 7 p.m. on Zoom. All OFNC members are welcome, whether you’ve finished the book or not (though please note that you must have an OFNC membership to attend).

If you’d like to attend the meeting, please register in advance by following this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/ofpzKn3eS5-514slkVQrrw

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We read nature-focussed non-fiction titles and meet roughly every two months online (via Zoom).