Early Birds

A pair of California Quails painted by J.R. Prevost, one of the illustrators on the
La Pérouse expedition. This is the "small grey crested partridge" mentioned in the text. 

Browsing the shelves at the library this afternoon, quite at random, I pulled out a book titled "Life in a California Mission" (Heyday Books, 1989).

On September 14, 1786, a French expedition lead by Jean François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse landed in Monterey, California. Their mission was exploration and scientific discovery. The two ships, Astrolabe and Boussole, had on board a remarkable group, including an astronomer, a geologist, a botanist, illustrators, and even an ornithologist. (It is said that a young Corsican by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte applied to join the expedition but was not accepted.)

The book I had picked up was a translation of the Journals of de La Pérouse containing an account of his visit to the Monterey and its vicinity, including the Spanish mission at Carmel.

I found interesting the accounts of birds in his writings. They may well be the earliest known written descriptions of California birds.

On discovering land by sighting birds:

"At noon our longitude was 124 deg 52 min. I could see no land, but at four o' clock we were enveloped in fog. We could not be far from shore, for several land birds flew around us, and we caught a gyrfalcon."

On encountering what I presume were brown pelicans based on the further description below "grey and white ... with yellow tufts":

"The sea was covered with pelicans. It appears that these birds never fly more than five or six leagues from the land, and navigators who encounter them during a  fog may be certain of being no further distant from it. We saw them for the first time in Bay, and I have since been informed that they are common over the whole coast of California. The Spaniards call them alcatraz."

(Interestingly, it turns out the English albatross also comes from the same root.)

On how the natives hunt birds:

"These Indians are extremely skillful with the bow and killed before us the smallest birds. Their patience in approaching them is inexpressible. They conceal themselves and slide in a manner after their game, seldom shooting until within fifteen paces."

The following passage describes the birds they encountered in more detail:

"The coppices and plains are covered with small grey crested partridges, which live in society like those of Europe but in coveys of three or four hundred. They are fat and of excellent taste.

The trees are inhabited by the most charming birds. Our ornithologist stuffed several varieties of sparrows, blue jays, titmice, speckled woodpeckers, and troupiales. Among the birds of prey, we observed the white-headed eagle, the large and small falcon, the goshawk, the sparrow hawk, the black vulture, the large owl, and the raven.

In  the ponds and on the seacoast are found the duck, the grey and white pelican with yellow tufts, different species of gulls, cormorants, curlews, ring plovers, small water hens, and herons. Lastly, we killed and stuffed a bee-eater, which ornithologists have supposed to be peculiar to the old continent."

A California Thrasher, also drawn by
 J.R. Prevost during this expedition.

It is fun to speculate on what birds are being described. I am not sure about the gyrfalcon described in the first quote; the blue jay is of course a western scrub jay; the speckled woodpecker might have been a northern flicker; the troupiales appear to refer to orioles; the white-headed eagle is obviously a bald eagle; the small falcon must have been a kestrel; the goshawk might have been the red-tailed or red-shouldered hawk; the black vulture the turkey vulture; the ring plover might have been killdeer; the water-hen must have been coots. My guess for the bee-eater would be a Cassin's or western kingbird. Any other guesses?

Sadly, the expedition was lost at sea about two years later. Fortunately, much material including the above accounts and drawings that had been dispatched during stops made by the expedition made their way back to France, and were published as Voyage de La Pérouse autour du Monde in 1797.

Years later, in 1826, Peter Dillon, an Irish merchant, found remains of La Pérouse's ships among the Santa Cruz Islands, east of the Solomons, in the South Sea.