Audubon, PA

I might have been keen to shake the dust of New York City from my shoes if there were any dust, but the sidewalks are hosed down each morning and it was a bit of a drizzly morning.  But this was the start of my drive West and I was keen to see the miles ticking by, but there was just one more thing to do before I really put the right pedal to good use.  I wanted to get to see something of Audubon.

Heading through the Lincoln Tunnel into New Jersey there was only one choice of music – Springsteen, a New Jersey boy, himself.

My journey would take a couple of hours according to the journey planner and it probably would have done if it weren’t for the difficulty of reading a map as a sole driver and spotting the signs and having a feel for the route.  But it took more like 5 hours to get to where I intended.

Admittedly I stopped for gas and tried to stop at Vera’s Family Restaurant for breakfast – but Vera’s was clearly a great place for breakfast and there was a long queue.  So I carried on down the road to the Chalfont Family Restaurant which also was busy – but had space for me.  I wonder what I missed at Vera’s?  After my country omelette I was pointed in the direction of Ralph and asked him to point me in the direction of Audubon, PA where John James Audubon had once lived.  Ralph pointed me helpfully in the right direction.

John James Audubon was sent to live in Pennsylvania by his father – probably to avoid having to fight for Napoleon against our own Duke of Wellington.  He arrived in PA at the age of 18 and stayed for a few years – farming, sketching and studying the local wildlife.

If he hadn’t been a draft-dodger maybe he would have died at Waterloo, bayonetted by a Coldstream Guard, and the world’s most expensive book would never have been produced.

Audubon’s Birds of America is a priceless work of life-sized prints – although you have a chance of purchasing a copy if you have a spare $11.5m on you – the price one sold at last December.

The admission to the Audubon Centre in Audubon PA is, by contrast, a very reasonable $4 (and I could have got in for $3 if I had been prepared to lie about my age – upwards!).  There is an exhibition of the great man’s work in various forms including a quarter-sized, four volume copy of the work.  I looked at all the warblers.

The plates are very beautiful even if not a patch on Sibley or Peterson for accuracy.  This work was at the time a stupendous achievement and Audubon sent far and wide for skins of birds which he then painted.

I looked at the Bachman’s Warbler carefully as I am never going to see one in the flesh – it’s a gorgeous rendition of what I assume was a gorgeous bird.  The Passenger Pigeon, Carolina Parakeet (which we will get to, eventually) and other extinct American species are illustrated.  At the time of his work Audubon could not possibly have predicted which of these species would by now have exited the planet.  I imagine Passenger Pigeon, present in its billions and well-known to Audubon himself, would have been way down his list of threatened species if he had had such a list.

The Museum is small but intimate.  You can sit and draw from stuffed birds as Audubon himself did if you care to, and looking out of the upstairs window I wondered how often this great artist had looked out of the same pane.

At 39 ” by 26″ the Birds of America is no pocket guide – but the plates are stunning in their beauty and breathtaking in their vividness considering that the artist was dealing with skins and bodies for the most part.

If you are in the area, do go visit.  But do your research as to how to get there – it’s very near the historic site of Valley Forge but not well-signposted at all.

I took away a little book of postcards of the warblers – for far less than $11.5m.  But I also took away a great deal of pleasure in finding out a little more about one of the world’s finest artists and most admirable draft-dodgers.

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