That Dodo That You Do So Well: 

Artists Give Form to Ghosts of Extinct Birds

When John James Audubon attempted to chronicle the full array of ornithological life in the United States between 1827 and 1838, he logged in 497 species in his famous series, Birds of America. Since then, various creatures he depicted have disappeared: American Species including the Carolina Parakeet, the Passenger Pigeon, the Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, and the Pinnated Grouse, along with their international relatives like the Spectacled Cormorant from Bering Island, the Hawaiian O’o, and, notoriously, the Dodo.

Now, a growing number of artists are giving form to the ghosts in our post-Audubon skies. 

There's Billy O’Callaghan‘s “redacted” version of Audubon’s classic featuring the species that no longer exist–like the Esquimaux (Eskimo) Curlew–a long with new birds that have emerged in recent times, like Big Bird (who seemed himself endangered during the election) and Peeps. There’s Walton Ford, whose ecologically-minded images of creatures real and imaginary owe a debt to earlier naturalist illustrations (and whose cover for the new Rolling Stones album comes from his King Kong series).

Then there’s Ralph Steadman, who answered a call for Ghosts of Gone Birds, a fundraising project for BirdLife International, and ended up doing an entire book of Extinct Boids. Most, like this Dodo and the Red Rail, another flightless bird from the Dodo’s island home of Mauritius, are based on creatures that have disappeared from the planet.  

Then there’s the Nasty Tern. That one’s just a good pun. 

Ralph Steadman, Dodo, 2011/COPYRIGHT 2012 BY RALPH STEADMAN. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF BLOOMSBURY.