{"id":14575,"date":"2014-01-23T19:40:13","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T00:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=14575"},"modified":"2021-11-26T18:28:21","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T23:28:21","slug":"for-more-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/for-more-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"For More Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I kicked-up a lot of material as I researched Audubon, Iowa in the recent For the Birds<\/a>. Originally I’d hope to feature several Audubon towns in the United States — and I do believe they are found only in the United States — and was completely overwhelmed by wonderful delights in rural Iowa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today I present the rest of the story, or at least a trio of standouts amongst the 213 different Audubon features listed in the Geographic Names Information System. Actually, a case could be made that I’ve featured three-and-a-half. One spawned another in a specific instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Audubon, Pennsylvania<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Audubon<\/a>
Mill Grove<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I began with Audubon, Pennsylvania since that particular spot had a genuine, tangible connection to John James Audubon through a property called Mill Grove. He moved there in 1803 when he was 18 years old. Only weeks earlier he went by Jean-Jacques Foug\u00e8re Audubon — He adopted his anglicized name as he boarded a ship to immigrate to the United States. The young Jean-Jacques started with a bit of stigma during his earliest years although he flourished once he arrived at Mill Grove, as the National Audubon Society explained<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Audubon was born in Saint Domingue (now Haiti), the illegitimate son of a French sea captain and plantation owner and his French mistress… he was sent to America, in part to escape conscription into the Emperor Napoleon’s army. He lived on the family-owned estate at Mill Grove, near Philadelphia, where he hunted, studied and drew birds, and met his wife, Lucy Bakewell. While there, he conducted the first known bird-banding experiment in North America, tying strings around the legs of Eastern Phoebes; he learned that the birds returned to the very same nesting sites each year.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The National Audubon Society now manages the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove <\/a>and operates a museum on the historic site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n