Two centuries ago, in spring 1824, three remarkable birdmen met in Philadelphia. George Ord, vice president of the Academy of Natural Sciences, was launching a new edition of Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology. Charles Bonaparte, Napoleon’s 20-year-old nephew, was just beginning major studies to compare the bird species of North America and Europe. John James Audubon, returning after years on the frontier in Kentucky and Louisiana, was seeking a publisher for his monumental Birds of America. In an age of discovery and new ideas, encounters among these three men would change the course of bird study all over the world, as Kenn Kaufman describes in this program based on chapters from his latest book.
A keen naturalist from the age of six, Kenn Kaufman burst onto the birding scene as a teenager in the 1970s, hitch-hiking all over North America in pursuit of birds-an adventure later chronicled in his cult-classic book Kingbird Highway. After several years as a professional bird tour leader, taking groups to all seven continents, he transitioned to a career as a writer, editor, and illustrator. The latest of his 14 books, The Birds That Audubon Missed, will be published in May 2024. Kenn is a field editor for the National Audubon Society, a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society, and the only person to have received the American Birding Association’s lifetime achievement award twice.