Falsehood Flies: In Search of Audubon’s Cryptid Eagle

This week I delve into the cryptozoological mystery of the Bird of Washington, a sea eagle first described by famed American ornithologist John J. Audubon in 1826. Is it real, or is it a hoax, and if it is, why would one of America’s most beloved naturalists lie about its existence?

 

Show Notes:

• The Lochness Horror Trailer (YouTube)
• John James Audubon (Wikipedia)
• Substantiating Audubon's Washington's Eagle
• Kyle Blaney's Townsend's Finch Photos
• Matthew R. Halley's Website
• Audubon's Bird of Washington: unravelling the fraud that launched The birds of America
• American Birding Podcast feat. Nate Swick and Matthew R. Halley
• Pee-Wee Herman "Knitting" (YouTube)
• The Bird of Washington by James G. Clark

 

This episode of Mount Molehill was written, produced, and edited by Chris, with music by Chris and Alex Bainter / CC BY. Any voices featured on the podcast are computer generated unless otherwise noted. This podcast features materials protected by the Fair Use guidelines of Section 107 of the Copyright Act. All rights reserved to the copyright owners.

 

If you have a molehill that you’d like us to turn into a mountain, email us at [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Some people call it alegend, others call it a lie.
Is there a monster in the Loch Ness Bog?
Or is Nessie just a horrible apparitionswimming deep in the Scottish folklore?
This is audio taken from a trailer forthe 1981 film The Loch Ness Horror.
It's one of the many movies basedon the folkloric Scottish creature
affectionately known as Nessie.
And it's plot...

(00:30):
One man searches for science.
Another wants to pilfer for profit.
But both find bloody horror.
What served as an archetype of sorts formany of the Loch Ness monster adjacent
films that would come after such asMagic in the Water and Loch Ness.
Both of which I saw in theaters afterincessantly begging my parents to take me.

(00:51):
From the time I was young, even up totoday, I have always been absolutely
obsessed with monsters of all sorts.
When I was very little,it was movie monsters.
Gremlins, Jurassic Park, Creaturesfrom the Black Lagoon, these were
a few of the movies that werein heavy rotation at my house.
As I got a little older and becameaware of cryptids, that is, animals

(01:12):
that are believed to exist by some,but are not recognized by science,
such as Bigfoot, the Mothman, and theaforementioned Loch Ness Monster, It
was only natural that my obsession withmovie monsters would be transferred
onto these quote unquote real monsters.
In fourth grade, we did presentationson what we wanted to be when
we grew up and I said that Iwanted to be a cryptozoologist.

(01:35):
In particular, I was fascinated by theLoch Ness monster because it has often
been theorized by cryptozoologiststhat Nessie is a plesiosaur.
And the idea that a relict aquaticreptile from the Cretaceous period
was living in caves in a Scottishlake was just so cool to me.
Of course, as I grew older,the impossibility of such a

(01:56):
thing just couldn't be ignored.
But there will always be a part ofme that, just like Special Agent Fox
Mulder in the X Files, wants to believe.
So my interest in cryptozoologywill never completely disappear,
it's just matured a bit.
I'm now less interested in outlandishcreatures that in all likelihood could
never exist, and more interested inthe cryptids that we know did exist

(02:19):
at one point, like the thylacineor the ivory billed woodpecker.
Or that are completely biologicallyplausible as real animals.
But it's not just plausibility that I lookfor when researching cryptids these days.
Anyone with even a passingfamiliarity with cryptozoology will
be well aware that the field isno stranger to elaborate hoaxes.

(02:41):
So finding credible sources for cryptidsightings is of utmost importance to me.
And who could be a more credible sourcethan one of the most famous naturalists
and ornithologists of all time?
Welcome to Mount Mole Hill, aplace where even the smallest
mysteries become mountains.

(03:01):
I'm Chris, and this week I'm delvinginto the mystery of the Bird of
Washington, a sea eagle first describedby famed American ornithologist John J.
Audubon in 1826.
This is a story of one man's quest todocument every species of bird in America.
A quest which culminated not onlyin what is today one of the world's

(03:22):
most valuable books, but also in oneof ornithology's greatest mysteries.
The Bird of Washington.
Is it real, or is it a hoax?
And if it is, why would one ofAmerica's most beloved naturalists
lie about its existence?
Let's make a mountainout of this molehill.

(03:45):
So first things first, in order tounderstand the mystery behind Audubon's
enigmatic eagle, we have to understanda little bit about the man himself
and his book, The Birds of America.
John James Audubon was born in1785 in Haiti, then the French
colony of Saint Domingue.
His father, Jean Audubon, was a formerFrench naval officer turned privateer who

(04:07):
at one point had been imprisoned by theBritish during the American Revolution.
The situation between colonists andAfrican slaves in Saint Domingue became
increasingly tense, and in 1788, Theelder Audubon moved his family to France.
Being the child of moneyed parentage,John was a young man of many talents.
He fenced, danced, rodehorses, and played violin.

(04:30):
But from a very early age,Audubon was fascinated by nature.
His father said of him, He would pointout the elegant movement of the birds, and
the beauty and softness of their plumage.
He called my attention to their showof pleasure, or sense of danger, their
perfect forms and splendid attire.
He would speak of their departureand return with the seasons.

(04:50):
John attended militaryschool, but after failing the
officer's qualification test...
He focused once again on hispassion for nature and, in
particular, his passion for birds.
To avoid conscription in the NapoleonicWars, Audubon emigrated to the
United States in 1803 using falsifieddocuments procured by his father.

(05:10):
His father set him up with a partnershipin a Pennsylvania led mining operation,
but that didn't really end up panning out.
In fact, Audubon would spend thenext decade trying his hand at a
number of different business venturesto varying degrees of success.
And up to this point in his life, billsand obligations to his family had kept
him from pursuing his true passionsas a naturalist, but at the age of

(05:33):
35, after seeing no real success inhis previous ventures, Audubon began
what would become his life's work.
His mission?
To catalog and paint everyspecies of bird in America.
Audubon dubbed his futurework, The Birds of America.
And embarked on an expeditionacross the American West during
the first half of the 19th century.

(05:55):
Collecting bird specimens,documenting their physiology and
behaviors, and painting them.
This was a time in America's historywhen the West was truly wild.
The Louisiana Purchase had just been,well, purchased a few years prior, and
everything west of the Mississippi waseither Spanish territory or pristine
wilderness that had been mostlyunexplored by European colonists.

(06:19):
Wildlife was plentiful and varied, andit was the perfect setting for Audubon,
a trained taxidermist and artist.
to ply his trades.
At this point in history, documentingwildlife was nothing new to the
world of science, but what setAudubon apart was his approach.
With his creative use of wires anda grid system, Audubon was able to

(06:41):
mount birds in natural poses andrepresent their proportions more
accurately than his contemporaries.
Using a combination of watercolors,charcoal, and pastels, along
with natural landscapes paintedby commissioned artists, Audubon
was able to depict birds posingnaturally in their natural habitats.

(07:02):
Which was atypical for the time.
It took Audubon 12 years to completethe Birds of America, and he
identified 25 new species and 12 newsubspecies of birds along the way.
First published in 1827, theBirds of America consisted of four
volumes produced using copper platedetching, engraving, and aquatint.

(07:24):
Each print was water colored by hand.
As you can imagine, this was a timeconsuming and expensive process, and it
would have been prohibitively expensivefor Audubon to print the Birds of America
speculatively before securing buyers.
So what he did was sell the Birds ofAmerica under a subscription model.

(07:44):
Subscribers paid for a new setof five prints every month, which
consisted of three prints of smallbirds, one print of a medium sized
bird, and one print of a large bird.
And he focused on wealthy patrons,eventually earning the likes of
French King Charles the 10th, LordSpencer, and Henry Clay as subscribers.
Somewhere around 200 copies were produced,with 120 complete sets surviving today.

(08:10):
And within Audubon's book,we find today's mystery.
That of Falco Washingtoni, also knownas Washington's Eagle, the Bird of
Washington, and the Great Sea Eagle.
Audubon named the bird after GeorgeWashington, stating in Ornithological
Biography, which is his textualcompanion piece to the Birds of America,

(08:30):
that the eagle was indisputably thenoblest bird of its genus that has yet
been discovered in the United States.
I trust I shall be allowed to honorit with the name of one yet nobler,
who was the savior of his country, andwhose name will ever be dear to it.
If America has reason tobe proud of her Washington.
So has she to be proud of her great eagle.

(08:51):
Washington's eagle was an impressivebird with uniformly red brown
plumage, a 10 foot wingspan and aheight of three foot seven inches.
Washington's eagle was morethan 25% larger than America's
two other native eagles, thegolden eagle and the bald eagle.
Audubon himself only encountered livespecimens of the Bird of Washington

(09:13):
five times throughout his extensivetravels in the American wilderness.
During one of the encounters, Audubonshot and killed a Washington's Eagle,
which he then taxidermied and usedto document and paint the bird for
Plate 11 of the Birds of America.
But here's the mystery.
Does this bird exist today?

(09:34):
Did it ever exist?
A few ornithologists contemporary toAudubon also claim to have seen, killed,
or captured the bird of Washington,but none of the collected specimens
of Washington's eagle survive today.
And there have been no verifiedsightings of the bird in the modern era.
So really, the only evidence we havethat Washington's eagle is a real bird

(09:55):
is Audubon's drawing and a few writtenaccounts from the mid 19th century.
And there are quite a fewtheories as to the true nature
of Audubon's mystery eagle.
One is that Washington's eaglewas actually a juvenile specimen
or a subspecies of bald eagle.
Given the description of Washington'seagle as a uniformly red brown

(10:17):
bird, you might be thinking, Wait.
Isn't the bald eagle known for itsdistinctive white head and tail?
Well, you'd be right, it is, but forthe first five or so years of a bald
eagle's life, it goes through severalplumage stages ranging from dark brown
to brown with white streaking beforearriving at its definitive plumage.

(10:37):
So, at first blush, it does seem possiblethat Washington's Eagle is a case of
mistaken bald eagle identity, and, infact, some ornithologists had previously
classified juvenile bald eagles as aseparate species from the adults, owing
to the pronounced difference in plumage.
But there are a fewproblems with this theory.
Would a renowned naturalist likeAudubon, who specialized in birds,

(11:02):
really have mistaken a juvenile baldeagle for an as yet undescribed species?
Well, probably not.
In Audubon's time, bald eagles wereabundant, and he documented numerous
encounters with both the maturebald and juvenile brown varieties.
In fact, plate 126 of the Birds of Americadepicts one such juvenile bald eagle.

(11:24):
So Audubon was familiar withplumage variation in bald eagles,
yet still described Washington'seagle as a distinct species.
On top of that, the dimensionsgiven for Washington's eagle by
Audubon far exceed those of an adultbald eagle, let alone a juvenile.
And without getting too far into theweeds of eagle anatomy, Audubon described

(11:46):
a number of other features belongingto the bird of Washington that are
just incompatible with the bald eagle.
Audubon also noted that thebird of Washington nested in
ground nests, something that isexceedingly rare for bald eagles.
They only do this in the absence of trees.
And the Ohio River Valley, whereAudubon first described Washington's

(12:06):
eagle, is lushly forested.
Another similar theory isthat Washington's eagle was a
misidentification of the golden eagle,but again, Audubon would have been
quite familiar with golden eagles.
And the anatomy and behavior of theBird of Washington, as described
by Audubon, are simply incompatiblewith those of the Golden Eagle.

(12:27):
A third theory is that Washington'sEagle was a genuine species, but that it
became extinct after Audubon's sightings.
And there is someevidence to support this.
Remember that Audubon himself onlyobserved live specimens of the Bird of
Washington on five separate occasions.
And he noted that the eagle wasalready rare, and possibly near

(12:49):
extinction during his lifetime.
And Audubon was not the only ornithologistto claim to have seen the bird.
In fact, one naturalist, Jared P.
Kirtland, who initially had beenskeptical of Audubon's eagle, Later
recorded a sighting of his own in 1842.
There are contemporaneous writtenaccounts of stuffed specimens

(13:10):
housed in several different museums.
One, Dr.
Lemu Hayward is even said to haveacquired a live bird of Washington
and kept it for a considerable time.
Further evidence to support this theorycan be found in the other mystery
birds found in the Birds of America.
Aside from Falco, Washington, there arefive other birds in the Birds of America.

(13:32):
Townsend's Finch, Cuvier's Kinglet,the Carbonated Swamp Warbler, the Small
Headed Flycatcher, and the Blue MountainWarbler that have never been identified.
Interestingly enough, Audubon'sspecimen of the Townsend's Finch
still exists in the SmithsonianMuseum of Natural History in D.
C.
But after examination by Kenneth Parksof the Carnegie Museum of Natural

(13:55):
History, it was determined thatthe Townsend's finch specimen was
likely a known species, a dickcissel,albeit one with aberrant plumage.
In 2014, however, bird hobbyistKyle Blaney photographed a bird
that is strikingly similar tothe Townsend's finch specimen.
Again, this bird is likely anotherdickcissel with aberrant plumage, and

(14:17):
while evidence for the existence ofone Audubon mystery bird isn't evidence
for the existence of the bird ofWashington, at the very least we can
say that just because Audubon's mysterybirds haven't been identified yet,
doesn't mean that they never will be.
And there isn't really any evidenceagainst the theory that Washington's
Eagle was a real bird that has sincegone extinct, but that's because

(14:40):
the claim is largely unfalsifiable.
There's no way to prove that itdoesn't exist or that it didn't exist.
Perhaps one day one of the purportedspecimens of Washington's Eagle will be
found in a museum vault somewhere, atwhich time science will be able to prove
for certain whether or not it representsa new species, but until then, we can't

(15:01):
really prove it one way or the other.
And evaluating the theories we'vediscussed so far, I think it's safe to
say that the bird of Washington isn't acase of misidentification of any sort.
It just doesn't make sense.
Audubon knew birds, and it justwouldn't make any sense for someone
of Audubon's background to mistakeone of America's other birds for

(15:23):
Audubon's eagle as he described it.
But what if Audubon's almost mythicalstature as a naturalist is the problem?
What if his other work in ornithology,which is nothing short of astounding,
provides a cloak of credibility thathas just prevented us from asking
the question we should all be asking?

(15:44):
What if Washington's Eagle is just a lie?
Well, that's exactly what itis, according to one researcher.
Matthew R.
Halley is a scientist whose areasof interest include ornithology
and the history of science and art.
Here are just a few of hisaccomplishments in those fields taken
directly from his website, whichI will link to in the show notes.

(16:07):
He, quote, exposed Thomas Jefferson'sunpublished ornithology manuscripts.
Located five unpublished lettersof Audubon, including the original
prospectus for the Birds of America.
Relocated Audubon's type specimen ofWestern Meadowlark, Sternella neglecta,
which was lost for 150 plus years.
Located Alexander Wilson's type specimenof Falco niger, thought to be lost

(16:30):
or destroyed in the 19th century.
Expose the composite nature ofWilson's Tawny Thrush, turdus Muus,
and the misidentification of TurdusAtu, and relocated Thomas Sas,
holotype of an extinct cephalopod.
Ti Vedis lost 480 years and quote.
Clearly, Halle has some experience indigging up lost scientific artifacts

(16:54):
and most pertinent to this podcast.
It's a paper in which hequote, demonstrated widespread
scientific fraud in the works ofJohn James Audubon, end quote.
In June 2020, Halley published anarticle in the Bulletin of the British
Ornithologist Club titled, Audubon'sBird of Washington, Unraveling the Fraud

(17:15):
that Launched the Birds of America.
And the following month, he joinedNate Swick of the American Birding
Podcast to further discuss the topic.
I reached out to both Matthew Halleyand Nate Swick, but did not get
a response from either in time toinclude them in this podcast, so the
best that I can do is summarize thearticle in the discussion, which is

(17:36):
what I'm going to do here in a moment.
But if you're at all interestedin this, and I assume you are if
you're still listening, I encourageyou to check out both, which I
will link to in the show notes.
So just assume that everythingcoming up in this next section was
taken from one of those two sources.
Halley's research quite convincinglylays out a tale of fraud perpetuated

(17:58):
by perhaps the most vaunted figure inAmerican ornithology, He begins his
article by exposing evidence of plagiarismin plate 11 of the Birds of America.
And remember that plate 11 is the platethat features the Bird of Washington.
He uses side by side comparisons of plate11 and an earlier image labeled Golden

(18:18):
Eagle that appeared in the Cyclopediapublished between 1802 and 1820.
To the layperson, the similaritybetween the two images is self evident,
but Halley being an ornithologist.
Is able to further describe somecommon anomalies between the two
images that point towards plagiarism.
Both the Golden Eagle and the Bird ofWashington images have ten tail feathers.

(18:41):
Real eagles have twelve.
Both images have what appears tobe a tomeal tooth on their beak,
a feature of falcons, not eagles.
Both have a weird concavedepression in their skulls.
Both birds are awkwardlyperched atop a rock.
But there is also one majordifference between the images
that further points to plagiarism.

(19:03):
According to Halley, the foot of theGolden Eagle image is anatomically
incorrect, and Audubon realized this.
So what did he do?
He copied a different drawing of abird's foot from another section of
the Cyclopedia, and transposed it ontohis painting of the Bird of Washington.
So, if we accept that Audubon plagiarizedhis image of the Bird of Washington,

(19:27):
we should also accept that he probablynever had a specimen of the bird in the
first place, which, remember, he saidhe used a specimen of the bird that
he shot and killed to make Plate 11.
But, if he never had a specimen ofthe Bird of Washington, and he just
made the bird up out of whole cloth,How do you explain the contemporaneous
accounts of other scientists seeingspecimens themselves or being aware

(19:50):
of the existence of specimens?
Well, one of the most well known claimscomes from zoologist Richard Harlan, who
was accompanied by Audubon himself duringhis encounters with a live and stuffed
specimen of the Bird of Washington.
In March of 1830, the two men visiteda place called McAron's Garden.

(20:11):
There, they observed a captiveeagle, which Harlan believed
to be the Bird of Washington.
Now remember, the Bird of Washingtonplate does bear some resemblance
to a juvenile bald eagle.
And Audubon, knowing this, and knowingthat the Bird of Washington did not
actually exist, Corrected Harlan, andexplained that the bird in question
was simply a young bald eagle.

(20:33):
The two later visited a taxidermy shopowned by Joseph Brano, wherein they found
a stuffed specimen of an immature baldy.
And Audubon, knowing that the bird wasdead, and could therefore never molt
into its white headed adult plumage,Convinced Harlan that this specimen
was indeed his bird of Washington.
And these are just a few of the key piecesof evidence laid out by Halley, all of

(20:56):
which I can't cover here in the interestof time, but I encourage you to read the
full article, because it's fascinating.
And like Pee wee Herman said, It'slike you're unraveling a big cable knit
sweater, that someone keeps knitting,ha ha knitting, ha ha knitting, ha ha
knitting, ha ha knitting, ha ha knitting.
I suppose the Final questionleft to answer is, if indeed the

(21:20):
Bird of Washington is a big fatphony, Why did Audubon do it?
Well, Halley believes that Audubon'smotives were mostly economic.
If you'll remember, he had tried hishand unsuccessfully at different business
ventures prior to committing himselfto working on The Birds of Washington.
And that book didn't begin publishinguntil Audubon was already 41 years old.

(21:44):
Prior to The Birds of America, Audubonhad failed to distinguish himself
and, in fact, had been rejected formembership by the Academy of Natural
Sciences in 1824, where he proposed hisinitial plan for the Birds of America.
At its start, the Birds ofAmerica was not a success.
It wasn't until he presentedhis Bird of Washington plate to

(22:06):
audiences in London and Edinburgh.
That he gained the support ofwealthy patrons and became an
almost overnight sensation.
He had finally achieved theacclaim and success that he had
been seeking his whole life.
And after building his reputation onthe wings of Washington's eagle, there
was too much at stake for him to everadmit that the whole thing was a lie.

(22:27):
And it's important to point out, that thislie spread much further than the European
aristocracy and the scientific community.
The Bird of Washington, for a time, wasa symbol of national pride in America.
The song you're listening toright now, titled The Bird of
Washington, was written by James G.
Clarke in 1857, six yearsafter Audubon's death.

(22:51):
Thirty years after Audubon introducedthe Bird of Washington to the world.
Even after the man was gone.
There was too much invested intothe myth of Washington's Eagle to
earnestly evaluate its authenticity.
And now, we return to the Loch NessMonster, because it, much like the Bird

(23:15):
of Washington, was made famous by a lie.
Rumors of a large beast living in LochNess go back possibly as far as 565 A.
D.
But it wasn't until the first photographof Nessie, the so called Surgeon's
Photograph from 1934, was published.

(23:43):
It's now 2023, nearly 200 years afterAudubon first revealed his plate of
Washington's Eagle, and very few peopleare aware of its dubious origins.
And it's just like that famousquote from Jonathan Swift.
Falsehood flies, and truthcomes limping after it.

(24:09):
Mount Mole Hill is written,produced, and edited by me, Chris.
With music by myself and Alex Painter.
Any voices other than mine featuredon the podcast are computer
generated, unless otherwise noted.
All of the sources used in thisepisode can be found in the show notes.
This podcast features materials protectedby the Fair Use Guidelines of Section

(24:32):
107 of the Copyright Act, all rightsreserved to the copyright owners.
If you have a molehill that you'd likeme to turn into a mountain, whether it's
a mystery that you just can't solve orjust an interesting topic you'd like
me to delve into, please reach out.
You can email me atmountmolehillpodcast at gmail.
com.
Or you can call and leave mea voicemail at 505 218 6894.

(24:58):
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Thanks for listening.
I'll be back with anotherepisode in two weeks.