John James Audubon was born in Saint Domingue, a French colony at the time that later became the independent nation of Haiti, on April 26, 1785.  Four years after his birth, his father and he moved to France to live with his stepmother.  It was there that he began to develop a love for being outdoors, for birds, and for drawing.  In 1803 he moved again though, and moved to America to escape having to join Napoleon's Army.  Once in America, he ran a farm his father had previously purchased many years before, in Philadelphia.  His love for birds and drawing traveled with him, and he spent most of his time hunting and drawing birds.  It was around this time when he conducted the first known bird-banding experiment in North America.  He tied strings around Eastern Phoebes legs and discovered that birds return to the same nesting sites each year.  It was also in Philadelphia where Audubon met his wife, Lucy Bakewell.

In 1810, Audubon and his wife sailed down the Ohio River settling in Henderson, Kentucky.  In Henderson, Audubon started a dry- goods store; he also continued to draw birds and learn about the different kinds of species.  It was in Kentucky that Lucy gave birth to two sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, as well as two daughters who died young, Lucy and Rose.  In 1819 during hard times, Audubon's business started to fail and he was put in jail for bankruptcy.

With nothing to do, Audubon set off to depict America's birds while Lucy earned a living by being a tutor to wealthy plantation families.  As he traveled, Audubon's paintings became over-night successes and he quickly found a publisher for his book, Birds of America, first in Edinburgh then in London.  The book had 435 portraits of every bird then known in the U.S.  He also helped write about birds in Ornithological Biography. He started assembling a book called The Viviparous Quadrapeds of North America but when his eyesight failed, his sons helped him finish it.  After his success, he settled in New York City and continued to draw birds.  He died at the age of 65.

For more information about John James Audubon, visit the link below:

National Audubon Society

American Masters: John James Audubon Career Timeline