This book was put together by my grandfather who worked for the phone company in New York City, so this was a discarded handbook cover that they were throwing away, so he thought he would take it home and make his own book out of it. He was interested in birds, believe it or not, and he thought rather than spending money on a field guide for birds, he went to the library and got books out and typed up his own field guide to birds on this little paper with his little typewriter. […] There’s some odd code at the very top of the page… so what does that mean? 5.6 is how big this bird is. This by the way is a Black Coal Warbler. T means it’s transient, or migratory. 5 stands for the 5th month of the year, which is May, and E9-510 means early Sept through mid-October. […] This is something that my mom kept, and as I became interested in birds, she gave it to me. So it’s a family treasure. […] My dad did the same thing, and I discovered that only a few years ago. Lists of what birds he saw, when and where… And of course those of you who know me know I do the same thing as well, so it’s a weird genetic thing in my family, apparently.

This belongs in The Museum of Objects that Represent the Relationship Between the Human World and Animal World

Exhibited by Pete Olson

Transcript edited by Serena Washington