Timeline of ornithology

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The following is a timeline of ornithology events:

1 BC up
2 18th Century
3 19th Century
4 Twentieth century
5 20th Century late
6 21st Century
7 See also

[edit] BC up

1500-800 BC - The Vedas mention the habit of brood parasitism in the Asian Koel (Eudynamys scolopacea). (Ali, S. (1979), Bird study in India : its history and its importance. ICCR, New Delhi. Azad Memorial Lectures.)
4th century BC - Aristotle mentions over 170 sorts of birds in his work on animals. He recognises eight principal groups
1st century - Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis Book X is devoted to birds. Three groups based on feet characteristics
2nd century - Aelian mentions a number of birds in his work on animals. Birds are listed alphabetically
1037 Death of Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in Latin) author of “Abbreviatio de animalibus,” a homage to Aristotle
1220 Books on birds and other animals by Aristotle and Avicenna translated into Latin for the first time by Michael Scot
1250 Death of Frederick II von Hohenstaufen, Holy Roman Emperor, and author of “de Arte Venandi cum Avibus” that describes the first manipulative experiments in ornithology and the methods of falconry
1478 - De Avibus by Albertus Magnus is printed, which mentions many bird names for the first time
1485 - First dated copy of Ortus sanitatis by Johannes de Cuba
1544 - William Turner prints a commentary of the birds mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny
1555 - Conrad Gessner's Historic Animalium qui est de Auium natura and Pierre Belon's (Bellonius) Histoire de la nature des Oyseaux. Belon lists birds according to a definite system
1573 - Volcher Coiter publishes his first treatise on bird anatomy
1591 - Joris Hoefnagel starts to work for Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor and produces for him 90 oil-base paints, of which one is of the Dodo.
1600 - Beginning of the publication of the works of Ulisse Aldrovandi on birds.
1603 - Caspar Schwenckfeld publishes the first regional fauna of Europe: Therio-tropheum Silesiae.
1605 - Clusius publishes Exoticorum libri decem in which he describes many new exotic species.
1638 - Georg Marcgraf begins a voyage to Brazil where he studies the fauna and flora.
1655 - Ole Worm collects a famous cabinet of curiosities whose illustrated inventory appears in 1655, Museum Wormianum. This collection comprises many birds but the techniques of conservation are not successful and they are quickly destroyed by insects.
1657 - Publication of Historiae naturalis of avibus by John Jonston.
1667 - Christopher Merrett publishes the first fauna of Great Britain, followed two years later by that of Walter Charleton.
1676 - Publication of Francis Willughby's Ornithologia by his collaborator John Ray. This is considered the beginning of scientific ornithology in Europe, revolutionizing ornithological taxonomy by organizing species according to their physical characteristics
1681 - The last Dodo dies on the island of Mauritius

[edit] 18th Century

1731-1743 - Mark Catesby publishes his Natural History of Carolina, which contains coloured plates of the birds of that colony, Florida and the Bahamas
1735 - First edition of Carolus Linnaeus' Systema Naturae. The classification of birds follows that of Ray
1741 - Georg Steller studies the birds of the north Pacific on his voyage with Vitus Bering
1743 - George Edwards begins publication of his bird plates
1760 - Mathurin Jacques Brisson's six-volume Ornithologie improves upon Linnaeus' classification
1768-1780 - Voyages of James Cook to the Pacific and Australia during which many birds new to science are collected by Joseph Banks and Johann Reinhold Forster
1770-1783 - Buffon's Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux was the first work to take into account the geographical distribution of birds
1776 - Francesco Cetti publishes Uccelli di Sardegna
1778 - Juan Ignacio Molina publishes Saggio sulla storia naturale del Chile which includes the first descriptions of many South American species
1785 - John Latham completes his Synopsis of Birds, which describes many birds collected in Australia and the Pacific Ocean. Thomas Pennant publishes Arctic Zoology.
1788 - Johann Friedrich Gmelin commences work on the 13th edition of Systema Naturae which includes the classification of many birds for the first time, especially those described by Latham
1788 “de Arte Venandi cum Avibus” by Frederick II (d. 1250) published and compared favorably to contemporary science by Blasius Merrem and Johan Gottlobb Schneider
1789 - Publication of Gilbert White's Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne
1797 - François Le Vaillant begins publication of his Oiseaux d'Afrique giving details of species encountered on his exploration of South Africa
1797 -1804 - Publication of Thomas Bewick's British Birds

[edit] 19th Century

1801 - Alexander Wilson begins his study of North American birds, resulting in his American Ornithology (1808-1814), later updated by Charles Lucien Bonaparte
1802 - Publication of George Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary
1811 - Publication of Peter Simon Pallas' Zoographia Russo-Asiatica includes details of the birds encountered in his journeys through Siberia
1815 - Coenraad Jacob Temminck publishes his Manuel d'ornithologie, the standard work on European birds for many years
1827-1838 - Publication of John James Audubon's Birds of America
1831-1836 - Charles Darwin travels to South America and the Galapagos Islands on board HMS Beagle. His study of Galapagos finches gives him ideas on natural selection
1832 - Edward Lear publishes Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae
1838 - John Gould travels to Australia with his wife Elizabeth to study the birds of that country
1840 - John Gould publishes the first part of The Birds of Australia
1844 - The last Great Auk is recorded in Iceland
1857 - Philip Sclater presents his paper On the General Geographical Distribution of the Members of the Class Aves to the Linnean Society
1858 - Alfred Newton forms the British Ornithologists' Union
1861 - Fossil of archaeopteryx found in Germany supports link between dinosaurs and birds
1868 - Association for the Protection of Seabirds formed in England
1869 - The Seabirds Protection Act is the first law passed in the United Kingdom to protect birds
1873 - Publication of Ornitologia Italiana by Paolo Savi
1879 - Richard Owen publishes the results of his studies of Moa fossils
1883 - Foundation of the American Ornithologists' Union
1883 - Foundation of the Bombay Natural History Society
1884 - First International Ornithological Congress held in Vienna, with Gustav Radde as President
1888 -Max Fürbringer uses a mathematical analysis to create a classification system for birds that influences avian taxonomy throughout the 20th century
1889 - Foundation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to campaign against the plumage trade
1889 - Ludwig Koch makes the first sound recording of birdsong, that of a captive White-rumped Shama Copsychus malabaricus
1899 - Christian Mortensen of Viborg, Denmark is the first ornithologist to undertake systematic large-scale ringing. He uses numbered aluminium rings to mark 165 Starlings caught in nestboxes

[edit] Twentieth century

1901 - Johannes Thienemann establishes "Vogelwarte Rossitten" (now Rybachy), the world's first bird observatory
1901 - The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union established
1905 - Foundation of the National Audubon Society
1907 - The monthly journal British Birds begins publication
1909 - First organised ringing schemes in the UK
1909 - A bird observatory is established at Heligoland by Hugo Weigold. Birds are collected in specially designed wire-netting traps, still known today as "Heligoland traps"
1909 - First known mapping census carried out in Kent, England by the Alexander brothers
1910-1911 - BOU expedition to Dutch New Guinea
1912 - A Barn Swallow ringed by James Masefield in Staffordshire, England is recovered in Natal, South Africa
1914 - The last Passenger Pigeon dies in Cincinnati Zoo
1922 - Foundation of the International Council for Bird Preservation (now Birdlife International)
1922 - Publication of John Charles Phillips's A Natural History of the Ducks, which provides maps of the known breeding and wintering distributions of ducks throughout the world
1922 William Rowan tests the effect of photoperiodism on the size of gonads in birds
1928 - Ernst Mayr leads the first of three expeditions to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, during which he discovers many new species
1930 - Alexander Wetmore publishes his Systematic Classification
1931 - Ernst Schüz and Hugo Weigold publish Atlas des Vogelzuges, the first atlas of bird migration
1932 - Foundation of the British Trust for Ornithology for the study of birds in Britain
1934 - Roger Tory Peterson publishes his Guide to the Birds, the first modern field guide
1935 - Konrad Lorenz publishes his study of imprinting in young ducklings and goslings
1937 - Margaret Morse Nice publishes Studies in the Life History of the Song Sparrow
1938 - Foundation of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology
1943 - David Lack makes calculations of bird mortality using reports of ringed birds
1946 - Peter Scott founds the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge

[edit] 20th Century late

1950 - Rocket nets developed by the Wildfowl Trust for catching geese
1951-1954 - The 6-volume Birds of the Soviet Union by GP Dementev and NA Gladkov published
1953 - Niko Tinbergen publishes The Herring Gull's World
1954 - Protection of Birds Act in the UK prohibits the collection of birds eggs
1956 - First use of mist nets (invented in Japan) in the UK to trap birds
1962 - Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring, describing the ecological dangers of pesticides
1967 - Publication of Radar Ornithology by Eric Eastwood
1968-1972 - First national breeding bird atlas project conducted in Britain and Ireland
1970 - The Atlas of Breeding Birds of the West Midlands by Lord and Munns, based on field work by members of the West Midland Bird Club, published by Collins, is the first to use systematic grid-based method for gathering of information.
1976 - Publication of national atlases for Great Britain and Ireland, France and Denmark
1981 - Sibley and Ahlquist use DNA-DNA hybridisation to determine degrees of genetic similarity between species
1981 - Cyril A. Walker describes the Enatiornithes, a new subclass of fossil birds [Walker CA (1981) New subclass of birds from the Cretaceous of south America. Nature 292:51-53.]
1984 - Publication of The Atlas of Australian Birds
1989 - Discovery of the first poisonous bird, the Hooded Pitohui Pitouhi dichrous and Homobatrachotoxin by Jack Dumbacher
1991 - First new species described without a type specimen. The Bulo Burti Boubou (Laniarius liberatus) of Somalia described as a new species on the basis of the DNA sequence from a feather.
1995 - Hou Lianhai describes the Confuciusornithes, a new subclass of birds, from a fossil found in the Jinzhou market, Liaoning, China [Hou L, Zhou Z, Martin L, Feduccia A (1995) A beaked bird from the Jurassic of China. Nature 277:616-618]
1997 - Use of stable Hydrogen isotope signatures in feathers to identify origin of birds. [Chamberlain CP, Blum JD, Holmes RT, Feng X, Sherry TW, Graves GR (1997) The use of isotope tracers for identifyingpopulations of migratory birds. Oecologia 109:132–141]
1998 - Discovery of gut reduction before migration in Godwits. [Piersma T, Gill RE (1998) Guts don't fly: small digestive organs in obese bar-tailed godwits. Auk 115:196–203]

[edit] 21st Century

2004 - Proposal to identify bird species through DNA sequence by Hebert PDN et al. (PLoS Biol 2(10): e312.) using method termed as DNA barcoding.
2005 - reports of sightings of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, previously believed extinct.