A 200-year-old bird book draws crowds, one page monthly

Each month for the past decade, between 50 and 70 people have packed into the Special Collections & Archives room at Bowdoin Library in Maine to watch a single page turn. The book is one of roughly 120 surviving copies of John James Audubon's The Birds of America, published in the 1800s and filled with 435 large-scale birds painted in their habitats. Turning just one page at a time began as a way to limit light exposure. It became a ritual. After the reveal, staff sometimes pass around encased specimens of the new bird, and visitors occasionally place bets on which one will appear next. The page recently moved from a raven to a blue jay, which no one had wagered on. One Bowdoin employee told News Center she has spent years calling the event by a quieter name. "I'm still amazed," she said. "It's really magical." Flipping the bird, she calls it.