@rbfrncs

Writing about birds in people history and people in bird history.

 Brooklyn, NY
birdhistory.substack.com
Joined October 2016
  • Tweets2.5K
  • Following1.1K
  • Followers6.3K
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Some personal news: I’m writing a book! I’ve signed with Holt to write a full-length history of birds and people in America. Birds have always been central to our economy, divisions, culture, and identity. If you want to understand America, you‘ve got to understand its birds.
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Grand Kankakee Marsh is my roman empire
Zach 🌱🗺🚲🟩🏴
@ZZZZach8913h
I have a map for this! When this was destroyed it’s estimated that as many as ONE FIFTH of the migratory birds of North America were lost. It contained the largest lake in Indiana, Beaver Lake, which had the colorfully named Bogus Island in the middle of it, a notorious hideout for ne’er-do-wells and outlaws.
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We made a book! RURAL INDEXING: A COLLECTION OF AMERICAN BUILDINGS, SIGNS, AND SYMBOLS arrives from Rizzoli in March 2027. Our favorite themes & subjects from the 1000s of places we've visited since 2010—450+ pics, many never published before. Preorder: linktr.ee/ruralindexingproje…
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Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act it's illegal for people to kill protected species of birds like this northern flicker, and people should be held responsible when their pets do it too, just like when pets cause other kinds of damage.
Local Moron@captainpisslordOct 21
This is the smartest pet owner on facebook
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People have been fighting over cats and birds for more than a hundred years, I wrote about that history here birdhistory.substack.com/p/t…
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My favorite of the genre
timberdoodlelover@labradortwisterOct 20
Saw a blackbird with a red wing wonder what its called
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Same is true of animal names! woodchuck, chickadee, tanager, chipmunk, opossum, condor, coyote, jaguar. They're the best names we've got.
Ryan Moulton@moultanoOct 20
Anglicized Native American names are by far the best place names in the US. If we're going to go around randomly renaming things we should be switching to those. Consider how much better Manhattan is as a name than New York, or how much better Kentucky is than West Virginia.
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Don't let them stop you from dancing
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half the reason Benjamin Franklin complained about the bald eagle as national symbol was so he could land a sick pun about kingbirds
timberdoodlelover@labradortwisterOct 18
just found out eastern kingbirds have a crown wtf
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Until Derek answers (I know he will) who is the best dressed birder?
Robert Francis@rbfrncsOct 18
Replying to @dieworkwear
@dieworkwear please weigh in on fashion in birding our people need you
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Audubon’s the biggest scoundrel in the bird world, fascinating, frustrating, and unavoidable. Spend enough time with birds and sooner or later you’ll have to reckon with him, which I did on the latest episode HISTORY This Week. Give it a listen! open.spotify.com/episode/6Zc…
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Robert Francis retweeted
Ben Goldfarb@ben_a_goldfarbOct 14
"The global collapse of migratory shorebird populations is much more than a calamity facing a group of exquisitely evolved birds. It also tells us that our global network of aquatic systems is fraying." nytimes.com/interactive/2018…

Opinion | Shorebirds, the World’s Greatest Travelers, Face Extinction (Published 2018)

A 9,000 mile migration? It was no problem for these remarkable birds – until humans got in the way.

nytimes.com
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Median voter
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zeitgeist of the nation in 1960
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The story would be more inspiring if it actually worked. They could teach the birds to migrate, but shut the program down after 10 years because the human-raised cranes couldn't figure out how to have babies.
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Fun bit of environmental nationalism from Ira Gabrielson (FDR's FWS chief) in 1940
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Honestly, not the comparison I would’ve gone with.
HaoshokuVegan@HaoshokuOct 7
Coyotes naturally eat cats. I could feed my pet coyote a healthy victimless diet, but that's unnatural, so abuse?! My coyote gets roughly 10 cats per month for the next 20 years. A human decided to not prefer cats for once and no one rivals human might. The cats have no chance.
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brown-headed nuthatch with the goofiest ass call in the bird world
☆@fairieteethOct 7
the sillies
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If you enjoyed Listers, @TheBirdist's latest will help you appreciate how revolutionary it is to depict birders as dirt-bagging pot-smoking van-living 20-somethings audubon.org/magazine/history…

How Movies and TV Made Birdwatchers Uncool—and Then Cool Again

A century of screen history shows how heroic conservationists became tweed-clad caricatures, and when Hollywood finally started to ditch the tired trope.

audubon.org
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Robert Francis retweeted
The Birdist@TheBirdistOct 8
I wrote a new piece for the National Audubon Society! When I was a new birder 20 years ago I was ASHAMED. Birding was for DORKS. But why? How'd I get that impression? It wasn't always that way! One TV character in the 60s changed everything... audubon.org/magazine/history…

How Movies and TV Made Birdwatchers Uncool—and Then Cool Again

A century of screen history shows how heroic conservationists became tweed-clad caricatures, and when Hollywood finally started to ditch the tired trope.

audubon.org
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can someone explain what was going on with interwar publishing that an otherwise serious report from 1931 would choose this wacky typeface
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