Robert Francis
@rbfrncs
Writing about birds in people history and people in bird history.
The folks at @audubonsociety interviewed me about my bird blog. Give it a read! "Clashes over birds cut straight to the country’s deepest wounds and oldest struggles. Bird History is his effort to share what he’s learned and ponder what we’ve lost." audubon.org/magazine/when-…
Can somebody write something about the 1930 dirigible voyage across the Atlantic carrying a gorilla, a chimpanzee, and 539 canaries?
In 1979 the US Fish and Wildlife Service's only estimate of bird mortality from flying into windows was 3.5 million/year. Systematic study of bird collisions has given us a much better estimate today, which puts the number 20-30 times higher – between 600 million-1 billion/year.
They found the gene for tail feathers and kept spamming the "more" button
July 24 is Pioneer Day, a Utah state holiday to commemorate Brigham Young reaching the Salt Lake Valley with the mormon pioneers, which non-mormons celebrate as Pie and Beer Day.
This is how I learned jungle is a word that comes from sanskrit
Sometimes a stray remark in an old document reveals worlds we'll never be able to comprehend. Like John James Audubon mentioning how enslaved men at an Illinois saltworks were forced to slaughter passenger pigeons for weeks at a time.
Apparently Washington went hog-wild releasing Chilean Tinamous in the '70s?
If we're still looking for new names for the Audubon Society we could take some inspiration from Florence Merriam Bailey, when she founded the Smith College Audubon Society in 1886 she almost called it The Pterodactyl
Clay pigeons were invented because passenger pigeons went extinct
You probably haven't even bothered to thank your local gull today
Incredibly relatable guidance on leading bird walks from Florence Merriam Bailey in 1900.
People don't appreciate how much of a success turkey conservation has been. Their population dropped to 30,000 by the 50s. There were zero wild turkeys in Connecticut between 1813-1975, zero in NY between 1844-1959. And now they've graduated to pest status!
The turkeys we eat in the US are the descendants of birds taken by the Spanish from Mexico, which spread throughout Europe, and were then brought by English settlers to Virginia and Massachusetts. They crossed the Atlantic twice even though North America already had turkeys.
I would love to read a general interest book about how pretty much every major world cuisine as we know it was completely reinvented over a period of 50-100 years in the wake of the Colombian exchange--chilis coming to India and China, tomatoes to Italy, etc. etc.
Well well well now that you're the one being watched how do you like it?
Nothing says “I ❤️ NY” like “I will only live here if I am the Mayor.” nypost.com/2025/07/19/us-…
Be honest—how often do you think about ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶R̶o̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶E̶m̶p̶i̶r̶e̶ extinct American megafauna?
The garden of Eden was real and it was in the Great Plains