John James Audubon

A Short Biography

John James Audubon was a famous painter and ornithologist. An ornithologist is a scientist who studies birds. Most people know Audubon for his paintings, but he was the first person in America to practice banding birds.

Banding a bird involves capturing it and placing a small metal band around its leg. If that same bird is captured in its travels, ornithologists can track its movements to see where it goes. For example, if a bird is captured in New York and then in Florida, ornithologists can learn about the direction of its migration patterns, or, where it spends the winter. In the early 1800’s, Audubon captured a small bird called an eastern phoebe and tied yarn around its leg. When that same phoebe came back the next year, and still had the yarn on its leg, Audubon was able to learn that phoebes return to the same nesting site each year.