Birdwatcher’s Guide to Lewis and Clark

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was such a many-sided and significant venture that its journals offer some facet of interest for almost every avenue of scientific or cultural study. To concentrate on only one phase, as is done here with ornithology, does not deny the value of any other viewpoint. Archaeologist, anthropologist, geographer, biographer, historian, geologist, botanist, ichthyologist and enthusiasts of any other persuasion will always read the journals through their own choice of lens.

For both amateur birdwatcher and professional ornithologist the chosen lens is rose-colored indeed, for President Thomas Jefferson—who planned the project and appointed Meriwether Lewis its leader—had made special request for ‘information on all birds seen en route, especially those unknown within current U.S. boundaries. Of course he had asked for similar reports on animals of all kinds and on all plants and minerals. But perhaps the men felt a special interest in birds because Lewis knew, and the others were surely told, that the president was an enthusiastic birdwatcher who was keeping his own list of birds seen around his home. It was also known that Jefferson had a tame mockingbird as a most cherished pet.

Birdwatchers to the End

Lewis was the official naturalist, as Clark was the cartographer, surveyor, and principal illustrator for the journals, but both had birds very much in mind as the expedition started up the Missouri in the spring of 1804 after their winter camp-out at Wood River (present Illinois), 14 miles north of St. Louis. Bird names commemorating species seen or heard would soon be plentiful on the map that marked their route: Nightingale Creek on 4 June 1804; Blackbird Creek on 19 June 1804; Pelican Island on 8 August 1804; Corvus Creek on 16 September 1804, Teal Creek on 4 October 1804; White Brant Creek on 5 October 1804; and Grouse Island on 7 October 1804. Farther north and west would come namesake lakes, creeks, islands and rapids for goose and gosling, swan, lark, pelican, whip-poor-will, crow and brant. At the end of the first winter at Fort Mandan (near present-day Washburn, North Dakota), when some of the party returned to St. Louis with specimens and memorabilia for forwarding to Washington as planned, captive live birds—a prairie-chicken and four magpies—were among the gifts for President Jefferson. The magpie, so well-known in the Old World lore and legend, had not then been seen in North America except by a few explorers in the far north (around Hud. Son Bay and in present-day Alaska) and their abundance on both sides of the Rockies would be noted in the journals time and again. As for the chicken-like prairie bird, it would eventually be identified as sub-specific with the bird known to New Englanders as heath hen, heath cock and to others as pinnated grouse and other labels

All members of the party kept at least an occasional eye out for birds. Clark’s Negro servant York reported a game bird of “scarlet”^[4]Thwaites, VI:209. plumage—probably a ruffed grouse of red-brown color phase instead of the familier and more common gray-brown. Even Lewis’s dog Seaman came in for an occasional credit line when, as Lewis notes on 21 July 1805, when geese were abundant: “My dog caught several today as he frequently dose.”^[5]Thwaites, II:255. At journey’s end there were various preserved bird skins of species unknown to Lewis—and some unknown to science—for further proof that Jefferson’s request for bird study had been well-fulfilled. There would also be lengthy notes on appearance and behavior of birds in the journals—and sometimes pictures of unusual features. Clark’s sketch of the head of the bird they called “pied brant” (Fig. 1) quickly identifies it as the white-fronted goose, for instance, and another of a “white gull” with an odd beak proves it to be the northern fulmar (Fig. 2).

As a follower of the Lewis and Clark saga you can enhance your own savoring of their achievements by getting to know at least some of the birds reported. Whether your search is made along the historic trail itself or in your own backyard or any other favorite birding spot or even in the picture pages of a book, you can still share something of the trail aura. After all, any species you see and identify for the first time is a personal discovery, and each one—new or familiar—still has the same distinctive plumage, the same notes and actions and other clues that primarily Lewis, but occasionally Clark, scanned with eager eyes. As you find each one and try to check each identifying clue, you cannot help but know much of the same challenge, the same success—or frustrations—that kept Lewis and Clark birdwatchers to the end.

The journals identify 134 species of birds with reasonable certainty—by name for familiar species, and for others with some guess at family likeness and whatever distinguishing detail could be noted.^[7]See on this site Summary of Birds Seen by this author. Whenever possible, the bird was shot for close scrutiny to yield measurements of beak, feet, wingspan, body length, a count of tail or wing feathers and description of every marking. Shooting a bird for study is outlawed by today’s code unless a special permit is obtained for good reasons. But it was common practice then and necessary for identification until the 20th-century brought good binoculars and accurate bird guides with full-color illustrations into general use. Lewis and Clark—like Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon and every other 19th-century birder—were expected to make their descriptions with dead bird in hand. There was no other way to be certain.

“We could not kill it . . . therefore I cannot discribe it more particularly . . .” Clark wrote on 25 August 1804, as he told of a puzzling heron-like bird with “. . . a colour on the back and wings deep copper brown with a shade of red . . . “^[8]Thwaites, VI:128.

Of course many of the birds shot for study were also used as welcome food. And sometimes hunger may have taken precedence over the needs of science, for on one October night along the Columbia River Clark knew only one word to describe a nameless duck: “delicious”!^[9]Thwaites, III:140.

Most of the time, however, descriptions and measurements were carefully taken and recorded and a name of some sort added. Lewis had brought along several reference books on natural history to aid in finding a proper name, but in those years many American birds had never been identified in any printed text. At least 25 of the birds cited in the journals were such unknowns, discoveries made along the trail. Several others might have been discoveries also—the hummingbirds, for instance—but were not described clearly enough for certain identification. A dozen or so more were well known by some folk name but had not yet been published with the proper classification by Latin binomial required for discovery credit by international rules in force since the beginning of this century. Such official dates, and the name of the original classifier, are recorded in The American Ornithologist’s Union Check-list, the final authority on bird nomenclature in North America. It is the text to follow in determining which of the birds chronicled in the journal gave Lewis and Clark discovery honors.

The A.O.U. Check-list gives the official common name for each species as well as its scientific label,^[11]See on this site and also by this author, Guide to Latin Binomials. but do not expect to find such names used in the journals for every species. Much of the time Lewis did not even use the official common names found in books of his own day. Usually the folk names learned in Virginia boyhood or in later years afield came more readily to mind than book names. So in the journals you will read of log cock, calumet bird, lark woodpecker, butter box, buffalo-pecker, rain-crow and other epithets not usually in today’s bird books. You will also find that birds are often tagged with family names—flycatcher, crane, pheasant, brant, plover—that are not correct by today’s classification.

All in all, even an experienced ornithologist is likely to be confused in trying to match his own bird lore with journal records. Editions of the journals and the narratives based on the original journals have tried to remedy this with footnotes, but only recent notation will have the official names of the 1983 edition of the Checklist, or even the previous 1957 edition.^[12]See on this site the Glossary of Bird Names by this author which lists journal bird names alphabetically and matches each one with current nomenclature and other pertinent information.

The number of species you can match on a Lewis and Clark memorial birdwalk is uncertain. The total depends on how long and how patiently you look and whether you make your search in the places where the birds are most likely to be found. Many of them are seen only west of the Rocky Mountains, or only west of the Mississippi River, and will be as new to today’s easterners as they were to Lewis and Clark. However, only two species are extinct, not to be seen at all—the passenger pigeon and the Carolina parakeet. Two more—whooping crane and California condor (Fig. 3)—are so reduced in numbers that they can be found only in limited locales. A few others are seldom seen, but many are abundant, even as backyard neighbors, and can probably be located fairly easily with help from recent bird guides and local Audubon Societies. But be sure to use the modern names, not the journal names, or you may really be in difficulties.

The “Nightingale”

The very first bird named in the journals and in the 1814 Biddle/Allen narrative, or paraphrase based on the journals, and in its many reprints illustrates journal names versus modern names. On 4 June 1804, when the party was only three weeks up the Missouri, they stopped for the night beside a small stream. Just as they were settling down to sleep, they heard a lilting ripple of bird song, and the same estatic outburst came again and again all through the night. “. . . Nightingale . . . ” Lewis told himself and probably discussed his identification with Clark. The next day Clark added in his journal that “. . . a small creek . . .”, the one that they passed the previous day and near to their night camp ” . . . we named Nightingale Creek from a Bird of that description which Sang for us all last night, is the first of the Kind I ever heard. . .”^[13]Thwaites, I:38–39. If cartographer Clark indicated this on one of his sketch maps, that map is not extant. A close scrutiny of his maps indicates several creeks in this vicinity, but not one is so labeled.

Probably no one in the party even thought of doubting Lewis’s judgement or opinion, but of course any knowledgeable birder today knows that the nightingale is not native to North America and has ever been established as a permanent resident in spite of various attempts. The nightingale, however, had so many roles in Old World legends that even people who had never seen one felt as if they knew this fabulous songster. Early explorers and settlers from Europe—from Columbus on—assumed that any American bird singing by night—or even with melodious daytime carol—just had to be a nightingale. The mockingbird was most often the misnamed singer by moonlight, but the cardinal—usually a daytime vocalist—was commonly called Virginia nightingale. Lewis himself used that term in the journals.^[14]Thwaites, V:111, “virginia nitingale.” However, since the nighttime serenade along the Missouri was not familiar, the singer was certainly not a cardinal and probably not a mockingbird—unless it was an individual given to especially virtuoso performance. Many birds sing a phrase or two at night, especially if suddenly awakened, and this songster could have been a hermit thrush, well known for its lilting refrain. But only a mockingbird habitually “sings all night” so perhaps once again it was enrolled by nightingale misnomer. At any rate, don’t look for nightingales.^[15]For another perspective, see Clark’s ‘Nightingale’.

And don’t look for pheasants, either, although the journals mention seeing them a good 26 times and eating them, too. Pheasants are Asian natives, unknown in North American wilds until the 1880s, but brought to southern Europe by the ancient Greeks and into northern Europe by Roman conquerors. In Europe, they became half-tame game birds on private estates, so that only wealthy landowners -and a few poachers -ever got a good look. Most of the early colonists in North America knew little of pheasants except that they were large and brown-feathered and of supposedly delicious taste. When they saw a strange American bird of that description, they dubbed it a pheasant—and kept on calling it a pheasant even after more careful folk had labeled it a ruffled grouse. Lewis and Clark, like most Virginians, continued to use the pheasant misnomer, reserving “grouse” for smaller chicken-like birds such as the one most New Englanders called the heath hen. The ruffed grouse they had known since boyhood and all of its western kin are down in the journals as pheasants and identified in the Glossary of Bird Names.

Of course if Lewis had added the customary Latin binomial, the pheasant-grouse mix-up would be instantly cleared. But although Lewis had had some schooling in Latin and knew the scientific custom well—could find Latin labels in his reference books easily—he seldom used Latin in his journals. Clark used it even less, and at least once both chose misleading terms.

Genus Corvus

As the Missouri River carried the expedition into present-day Brulé County, South Dakota, the party camped for two days (16 September 1804-17 September 1804) beside a stream marked on Clark’s map as Corvus Creek because they had just killed a bird “of that genus”. Corvus, of course, is Latin for crow, and today there is still a Crow Creek in the vicinity. But genus in the only usage Lewis knew—the definition provided by the great Swedish classifier Carl Linnaeus in 1758—was not limited as it is today, and had the broad scope we now give to the term family. So to Lewis a bird of the genus Corvus could have been crow, raven, magpie, jay or nutcracker. And journal entries by both Lewis and Clark make this creek the scene for taking their first magpie. Clark notes that it was “a remarkable Bird (“Magpy”) of the Corvus Species . . .”^[17]Thwaites, I:151. Thwaites (I:11) says: “Words reproduced by us in Italics. enclosed by parentheses, are corrections in red ink, presumably by Biddle—e.g. (Moses B. Read); . . . . words in … Continue reading Lewis identifies it as ” . . . as a bird of the Corvus genus and order of the pica . . .”^[18]Thwaites, VI:130–131. Actually pica was the name of the species, not the order, an error Lewis might not have made if he had been in a quiet office and not on the trail. However, all the references to the magpie as “party-coloured corvus” and his obvious pleasure at its discovery indicate that the magpie was the real namesake for Corvus Creek.

Notable Birding Locations

Instead of trying to see all the birds of journal citings, some who make memorial birdwalks may choose to search only at one of the places where birds were most frequently mentioned: Fort Mandan in North Dakota; Travelers’ Rest in Montana; Beacon Rock in Washington State; Fort Clatsop, Oregon; Sauvie Island in Oregon; and Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Washington. It was at this latter location that Clark wrote: “opposite to our camp on a Small Sandy Island the brant & geese make such a noise that it will be impossible for me to sleap . . .”^[19]Op cit., Thwaites, III:199 In the journals written at Fort Clatsop, in the entries for 1 January 1806 to 15 March 1806, are listings and descriptions of all of the birds they had seen west of the Rocky Mountains on the outbound journey.^[20]A more usable recapitulation than the Thwaites journal entries is the listing paraphrased by Elliott Coues (Editor), History of the Expedition Under the Command of Lewis and Clark . . . , Francis P. … Continue reading

Three Key Species

In addition to such a favorite watch-post, you will want to look elsewhere if need be for the two namesake species—Lewis’s woodpecker, enrolled in the journals as black woodpecker, first seen on 20 July 1805, near the present site of Helena, Montana;^[21]Thwaites, op. cit., II:252. and Clark’s nutcracker, named in the journals as black-winged corvus (and also once in error as a woodpecker and first recorded in print as Clark’s crow) first seen along the Lemhi River in east-central Idaho, 22 August 1805,^[22]Thwaites, III:15–16. and further described on 28 May 1806 and 29 May 1806.^[23]Thwaites, V:75–76, 82–83.

Another famous trail-first is the western tanager, discovered 6 June 1806,^[24]Thwaites, V:111–112. as the party was homeward bound through Idaho and identified only by size and color until Alexander Wilson in Philadelphia saw the preserved skin and recognized it as a tanager-tagged Louisiana tanager, because the expedition had set out to explore the land acquired by the Louisiana Purchase. Louisiana, Latinized to ludoviciana, is still part of the scientific label, much to the confusion of those not aware of the reason for the nomenclature.

These three birds can be looked for afield and also in the famous color portrait by Alexander Wilson, who pictured them together for his American Ornithology of 1811—the first book to publish pictures and descriptions of expedition birds. Wilson also painted the one magpie from Fort Mandan that reached the White House alive and was then sent to Peale’s Museum in Philadelphia. He also talked at length with both Lewis and Clark about other birds seen along the routes of the exploring party.

The birds he painted were, he wrote, ” . . . but a small part of the valuable collection of new subjects in natural history discovered and preserved, amidst a thousand dangers and difficulties, by those two enterprising travellers, whose intrepidity was only equalled by their discretion, and by their active and laborious pursuit of whatever might tend to render their journal useful to science and to their country.”^[25]Alexander Wilson, American Ornithology, Bradsford & Inskeep, Philadelphia, 1808–1814, nine volumes. Several subsequent editions. The 1840 edition, reprint edition, Arno Press, N.Y., 1970, page … Continue reading

Wilson reported seeing “several” skins of Lewis’s woodpecker, three of the tanager, but only one of Clark’s namesake. He was required to hand over all of the skins to Peale’s museum after he had made his sketches, and did so. But he deeply resented not being allowed to sketch and study all of the bird skins brought back by the expedition. Evidently some for which there was only one skin in good condition were kept by artist and museum owner Charles Willson Peale to sketch for the American Philosophical Society which had hoped to sponsor a special volume on the natural history of the expedition—a volume that for various reasons was never completed or published.^[26]Charles Willson Peale’s letter to a John Hawkins, 5 May 1807, is transcribed in: Donald Jackson (Editor), Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783-1854, University … Continue reading All the original skins vanished,^[27]Jackson, op. cit., Letter 377, pp. 607-608; Letter 389, p. 623. Peale’s sons undertook the operation of the museum following their father’s death. The collections were moved to several … Continue reading but the Society still has Peale’s portraits of Lewis’s woodpecker, the tanager and the mountain quail—this last species was not published and classified until David Douglas^[28]David Douglas (1798-1834). naturalist, botanist, world traveler, was born in Perthshire, Scotland. From 1825 to 1833 Douglas made several trips form England to the Pacific Coast (Oregon Territory, … Continue reading wrote up his records in 1829. Wilson was also denied access to swan skins, for the whistling swan would be classified by George Ord in 1815 and the trumpeter swan later still.

Whistling (Tundra) Swan

The whistling swan especially belongs on any memorial list, for it is the only bird to go on official record by the name Lewis himself coined on journal pages. Swans were not really “discoveries” on the trail, for Lewis and Clark—perhaps every member of the party—had seen wintering swans in the eastern states. They saw them again at the exploring party’s Wood River (Illinois) winter establishment a few miles north of St. Louis, again at their Fort Mandan (North Dakota), and in resent-day Montana. But like everyone else in those days they mistook the American swan for the wild species known in Europe as the whooper swan and those first mentions in the journals hive “swan” no further label. Then in the autumn, 29 October 1805, along the Columbia River, Lewis realized for the first time that he was seeing swans of two different sizes.^[29]Thwaites, op. cit., III:171. Later he noted that the larger one had a huskier voice, while the smaller began “. . . with a kind of whistling sound and terminates on a round full note which is rather louder than the whistling . . . from the peculiar whistling of the note of this bird I have called it the whistling swan.”^[30]Thwaites, IV: 148.

Actually, the larger swan was the unknown western native, while the smaller whistler was the familiar species also seen in the east. But for some reason—perhaps because the swan always seemed such a big bird—Lewis mistook the larger swan for the familiar one. He made no attempt to give it further naming and it would not acquire its present official name of trumpeter until 1831. Lewis’s choice of whistling swan would remain official until mid-1982 (and the publication of the 6th edition A.O.U. Check-list in 1983) when the Union committee on nomenclature voted to combine this species with the seldom-seen Bewick’s swan (mostly of European habitat) and enroll the two together as tundra swan, Cygnus columbianus. At least the specific label columbianus is a reminder of where Lewis’s discovery took place, and the A.O.U. Check-list, 1983 edition, retains the statement that identification is based on the notes (Lewis’s journal) of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

End Notes

No other reference to the expedition is made in the Check-list, even for the Lewis and Clark namesakes, since such information is outside standard procedure. So it is only by checking the journals and notes that a full list of ornithological discovery credits can be made. Although official credit for scientific description and labeling would go to others better qualified, Lewis and Clark and their companions were the real discoverers of these 25 species: western grebe, tundra (whistling) swan, trumpeter swan, black brant, cackling goose, cinnamon teal, ring-necked duck, black shouldered kite, blue grouse, sage grouse (Fig. 4) mountain quail, semi-palmated plover, mountain plover, long-billed curlew, Bonaparte’s gull, least tern, common poorwill (and its ability to become dormant), Lewis’s woodpecker, pinyon jay, Clark’s nutcracker, northwestern crow, Sprague’s pipit, western tanager, McCown’s longspur, and western meadowlark. Two of the above, black brant and cackling goose, now are counted subspecies, but descriptions rate discovery status.

Several other birds documented in the journals and other records might be counted as discoveries if descriptions had been more complete. These include: red-necked grebe, various sandpipers and gulls, black-chinned hummingbird, broad-tailed hummingbird, Hammond’s flycatcher, Say’s phoebe, hermit thrush, and Brewer’s blackbird.

Several birds seen on the trail but not yet on official lists were already familiar by some common name to many besides Lewis and Clark. These include: American crow, cedar waxwing, double-crested cormorant, canvasback, etc. In spite of later dates for entry on official lists, they cannot be counted as expedition discoveries. Even the true discoveries were not counted unless there was a preserved skin or live bird to prove actual sighting.

John James Audubon, always a leader in bird portraiture, did not come to fame in time to receive expedition bird skins for first classification. He well knew the journals and longed to see the wild Columbia River country they described.^[31]John James Audubon (1785-1851), American ornithologist and artist, was born in Haiti. Settled in Philadelphia in 1803, and in 1808 moved to Kentucky and opened a general store in Louisville. … Continue reading Perhaps it was their citing of a jaylike “blue magpye” that led him to mislabel as “Columbia jay or magpie”, a bird skin that had actually come from Mexico, confusing it somehow with skins from the northwest. Audubon never did get to the Columbia River or Oregon, but he did explore the length of the Missouri in 1843, birding all the way. There he heard the song of the western meadowlark which no one had yet classified as a separate species in spite of Lewis’s 22 June 1805 journal entry.^[32]Thwaites, op. cit., II:180. Audubon used the specific label neglecta because it had been so long overlooked. He also classified the common poor will that Clark caught and mentioned in his journal on 17 October 1804,^[33]Thwaites, I:197. and the western gull, which may or may not have been one of the “grey” gulls mentioned in the journals. Lewis and Clark, unfortunately, were not trained in classification techniques and had left scientific publication of their trophies to others. They had gone up the river and over the mountains to the far west ocean shores to see what they could see, recount what they saw, and it is enough that their journals have given us treasure-trove reading for all time.