History of Ornithology Timeline

The earliest list of British birds, Pinax Rerum Naturalium Britannicarum, was written by Christopher Merrett in 1667, though authors such as John Ray considered it of little value.

Image source: Christopher Merret

Francis Willughby (1635–1672) and John Ray created the first major system of bird classification based on function and morphology rather than form or behaviour. Willughby's Ornithologiae libri tres, completed by Ray, is sometimes considered the beginning of scientific ornithology.

Image source: Francis Willughby

Ray worked on his Ornithologia, which was published posthumously in 1713 as Synopsis methodica avium et piscium, further consolidating systematic ornithology.

Image source: John Ray

Catesby's two-volume Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands was a landmark work including 220 hand-painted engravings, forming the basis for many species Carl Linnaeus described in the Systema Naturae.

Image source: Mark Catesby

Carl Linnaeus's 1758 Systema Naturae formally described many bird species based on earlier works such as Catesby's landmark natural history, establishing binomial nomenclature for birds.

Image source: Systema Naturae

Towards the late 18th century Mathurin Jacques Brisson began new works on birds, producing a six-volume work Ornithologie in 1760.

Image source: Mathurin Jacques Brisson

Comte de Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux comprised nine volumes on birds within his grand Histoire naturelle générale et particulière, a monumental contribution to ornithology.

Image source: Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

Gilbert White's 1789 The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne stood in contrast to earlier works like Turner's, being written in a tranquil era and inspiring generations of naturalists.

Image source: The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne

Jacob Temminck sponsored François Le Vaillant to collect bird specimens in Southern Africa, resulting in his six-volume Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d'Afrique, which included many non-African birds.

Image source: François Levaillant

Louis Pierre Vieillot spent 10 years studying North American birds and wrote the Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amérique septentrionale.

Image source: Louis Pierre Vieillot

A major advance was made by Max Fürbringer in 1888, who established a comprehensive phylogeny of birds based on anatomy, morphology, distribution, and biology.

Image source: Max Fürbringer

In the early 19th century, Lewis and Clark studied and identified many birds in the western United States, expanding knowledge of the continent's avifauna.

Image source: Lewis and Clark Expedition

Wilson composed a nine-volume American Ornithology, the first such record of North American birds, significantly antedating Audubon's famous work.

Image source: Alexander Wilson (ornithologist)

John James Audubon, born in 1785, observed and painted birds in France and later in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, publishing The Birds of America from 1827 to 1838, engraved by Robert Havell Sr.

Image source: The Birds of America

This technique became standard with the invention of the blow drill around 1830, allowing oologists to empty eggshells for scientific collections.

Image source: Oology

Specialization in ornithology led to the formation in Britain of the British Ornithologists' Union in 1858, fostering widely extended geographical ornithology across areas of British rule or influence.

In 1859, the members of the British Ornithologists' Union founded their journal The Ibis, which became one of the world's leading ornithological journals.

The idea of swallow hibernation was so well established that even as late as 1878 Elliott Coues could list as many as 182 contemporary publications dealing with the hibernation of swallows.

Image source: Elliott Coues

The first attenuated vaccine developed by Louis Pasteur, for fowl cholera, was tested on poultry in 1878, linking ornithology with veterinary science.

Image source: Fowl cholera

Organizations grew rapidly in membership in many countries, most notably the Audubon Society in the US, which started in 1885.

Image source: Audubon

This pioneering illustrated guide was published in 1887 as Hints to Audubon Workers: Fifty Birds and How to Know Them in Grinnell's Audubon Magazine, helping popularize bird identification.

The RSPB grew from a small Croydon-based group of women, including Eliza Phillips, Etta Lemon, Catherine Hall and Hannah Poland, and became primarily conservation oriented.

Image source: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

The study of birds in their habitats was particularly advanced in Germany with bird ringing stations established as early as 1903, advancing field ornithology.

Image source: Bird ringing

In Britain, some of the earliest ornithological works that used the word ecology appeared in 1915, marking the rise of ecological approaches to studying birds.

Image source: Ecology

As early as 1916, Julian Huxley wrote a two-part article in The Auk noting tensions between amateurs and professionals and suggesting that the 'vast army of bird lovers and bird watchers' could provide data scientists needed.

Image source: Julian Huxley

Unlike the RSPB, which was primarily conservation oriented, the British Trust for Ornithology was started in 1933 with the aim of advancing ornithological research.

Image source: British Trust for Ornithology

From Frank Chapman's illustrated handbooks to Roger Tory Peterson's classic Field Guide to the Birds in 1934, field guides transformed birdwatching into a mass pursuit.

Image source: Roger Tory Peterson

The Ibis resisted the introduction of new methods of study, and no paper on ecology appeared until 1943, marking a shift toward ecological ornithology.

The entire genome of the domestic fowl (Gallus gallus) was sequenced in 2004, opening a new genomic era in the study of birds.

Image source: Chicken

The zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) genome was sequenced in 2008 following the chicken genome, supporting modern research into bird behavior, song learning, and evolution.

Image source: Zebra finch