Shannon Kelly, interpretive resource specialist at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and Fort Mandan State Historic Site, Washburn, N.D., will give a Zoom talk Sunday, Feb. 25, about “Birds of a Feather”—the friendship between explorer Meriwether Lewis and ornithologist Alexander Wilson and their contributions to the study of birds in early America.
Shannon’s talk, which will begin at 4 p.m. (Central Time), will be hosted by the Southwest and Southern Prairie regions of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. The free talk is open to all members of the nonprofit organization and to the public.
If you are not a member of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, please send an email to southernprairie@lewisandclark.org to receive the link to Shannon’s Zoom talk. The link will be mailed to you on February 24.
The link will go live at 3:45 p.m. (15 minutes before Shannon’s talk) on February 25, giving time for Lewis and Clark friends around the world to have a few minutes of online social time. Shannon will talk until 5 p.m. when there will be a question-and-answer time.
PLEASE NOTE: If you are a member of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, you were emailed a link on February 21 for Shannon’s Zoom talk on February 25. If you did not receive that email, please send an email to southernprairie@lewisandclark.org
Left: Meriwether Lewis portrait by Charles Wilson Peale in 1807-08. Right: Alexander Wilson by Thomas Sully in circa 1809-1813.
In their journals, Lewis and the expedition’s co-captain William Clark recorded seeing 134 species or subspecies of birds during the journey from 1803 to 1806 journey from Pittsburgh, Pa., to the Oregon coast and then back to St. Louis, Mo.
Among the birds were 11 species known by common name but not yet classified by 1806 by ornithologists; nine unclassified species; and 25 species discovered by the explorers. Click here for more information and here to learn details and see photographs of some of the birds.
Meanwhile, Wilson, widely considered as the “Father of American Ornithology,” was perhaps most influenced by the ornithological information brought back to civilization by Lewis and Clark. He used their writings and specimens they returned with to complete his own works.
Wilson was the only Lewis friend to visit the explorer’s burial place near Hohenwald, Tenn., and document the account of Priscilla Grinder, who was at Grinder’s Stand the night Lewis died by murder or suicide. Learn more about Wilson.
Lewis’s Woodpecker.
Bird engraving: This is an engraving of Lewis’s Woodpecker, first recorded by Meriwether Lewis in his journal on May 27, 1806, near the current community of Kamiah, Idaho, on the Clearwater River. The engraving was by Alexander Lawson (1772-1846); the bird was included in Alexander Wilson’s nine-volume American Ornithology: The Natural History of the Birds of the United States. Here’s more info about Lewis’s Woodpecker.
Note: The links above for more information go to Discover Lewis & Clark (also known as lewis-clark.org), the educational website of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation.
Hey..and just for fun…click here to read The Birdwatchers’ Guide to Lewis and Clark. It’s a quick read.
Planning your own expedition along all or parts of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail?
Click lewisandclark.travel for an interactive map and information about sites to visit compiled by region.