This traditional salmon fishing fly, called a Green Highlander, is an example of the kind of fly that Edwin Rist could create. Flies like these are made of very rare bird feathers like the ones Rist stole from a British museum in 2009.
One Obsessed Musician, 299 Birds, and a Very Weird Crime
This is the true story of how a man stole hundreds of exotic birds to sell to salmon fly-tyers so that he could buy a golden flute. Really.
When Kirk Wallace Johnson, author of The Feather Thief, chanced on the story of how a young flute player named Edwin Rist had broken into the British Natural History Museum’s ornithological department and stolen hundreds of priceless exotic bird skins, he had no idea that he would be swept up into a world of fanatical fly-tyers, crime, and obsession that would completely take over his life.
When National Geographic caught up with him by phone in Washington, D.C., he explained how gentlemen fishermen in Victorian Britain created art while tying salmon flies; how their modern-day equivalents are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars on feathers to decorate their lures; and how a cousin of
