Audubon’s Birds

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is a writer. She has published several novels (“Paris London Dachau”, “Dla mnie to samo”, “Teraz”, “Nieszpory”) and collected interviews (two conducted along with Anna Dziewit: “Głośniej! Rozmowy z pisarkami” and “Teoria trutnia i inne”; and two by herself: “Jeszcze dzisiaj nie usiadłam” and “Piano rysuje sufit”). Agnieszka also published “Dusza światowa” – an extended interview with Dorota Masłowska. Together with Ewa Kuryluk, she wrote a book in the form of a conversation (“Manhattan i Mała Wenecja”), for which they received the Warsaw Literary Premiere Award.

Business wasn’t his strong suit, so his wife provided for the family. Thanks to her, Audubon could devote his life to watching and painting birds. His book The Birds of America is one of the most expensive publications in the world.

While there are many portraits of John James Audubon, the most famous is probably the one painted by John Syme. Audubon is shown wearing a fur coat with an unbuttoned white shirt underneath. His long hair falls on his shoulders in loose curls, and he is holding a shotgun. The image reflects Audubon’s charisma and the spirit of the era: an American pioneer exploring the Wild West; a Byronic hero. Ornithologist, naturalist, painter, autodidact, traveller – John James Audubon represented romantic heroes and enlightened diligence, a passion for empirical learning and describing the world.

John Syme, portrait of John James Audubon, 1826, White House in Washington

His life’s work, The Birds of America – a book consisting of 435 aquatint illustrations depicting birds in their natural habitat – is one of the most ambitious works on nature that has ever been created. To this day, it is also one of the most expensive books in the world. In 2010, a complete copy sold for more than £7 million at Sotheby’s in London. Audubon is the patron of the National Audubon Society, one of the largest environmental organizations in the US.

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Agnieszka Drotkiewicz:

is a writer. She has published several novels (“Paris London Dachau”, “Dla mnie to samo”, “Teraz”, “Nieszpory”) and collected interviews (two conducted along with Anna Dziewit: “Głośniej! Rozmowy z pisarkami” and “Teoria trutnia i inne”; and two by herself: “Jeszcze dzisiaj nie usiadłam” and “Piano rysuje sufit”). Agnieszka also published “Dusza światowa” – an extended interview with Dorota Masłowska. Together with Ewa Kuryluk, she wrote a book in the form of a conversation (“Manhattan i Mała Wenecja”), for which they received the Warsaw Literary Premiere Award.

Translation: Joanna Figiel

Publish date: 20.03.2020

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Wailana Kalama:

A travel and science writer from Hawaii, now living in Lithuania.

Stork spotting

I first spied a stork in Lithuania from the back of a bike. It was the dead of summer, a blazing hot July day cycling in the grassy countryside northwest of Vilnius. We were cycling up to Kernave for Midsummer’s Day celebrations, expecting bonfires, singing, sausages, and candles floating in the river. It was the type of hot, sunny day that drew out smatterings of wildlife here and there – a few cats, cranes, even a fox once. We kept to the forests where we could, crossing dirt paths and sandy roads. But sometimes the sand was too much, and drove us out onto a paved backroad with no trees in sight. A couple hours into the ride, we spied a telephone pole topped with a thicket. A nest. Catching a glimpse of a thin bird overhead, I pointed at the sky: “Gandras!” We watched it as it glided downward, silent, soon swallowed up by grassland.

The Ballads of Kukutis

“My, Vilnius is big!
At one end
A stork stands –
At the other
It claps its beak.”

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