BAKERSFIELD, CA.- The Kern County Museum presents Audubon of the West: Andrew Jackson Grayson, on view through June 20, 2005. This lovely exhibit explores western bird life through the works of Andrew Jackson Grayson. At the time of his death in 1869 he was the most accomplished bird painter in North America. Called "Audubon of the West", Grayson was also a Gold Rush entrepreneur, an explorer and an artist whose formidable body of work has only recently been brought to the public's attention. Grayson's life work after 1853 was to travel into the western wilderness to paint all the birds in the wild missing from Audubon's Birds of America. Unlike Audubon, he preferred to paint from living birds to capture their natural behavior and habitat. He supplied the Smithsonian with 2,000 bird specimens and images during those years. Courtesy of the California Exhibition Resources Alliance (CERA).