Blue crane or heron, Illustration from John James Audubon’s “Birds of America” (1827). This rare book is considered one of the most expensive in the world.

Jean-Jacques Audubon (or John James Audubon in the United States), was born on 26 April 1785 in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and died on 27 January 1851 in New York. He was an American ornithologist, naturalist and painter of French origin, who became an American citizen in 1812 and is regarded as the foremost ornithologist of the New World.