Plate 426
Havell CXLVIII
Black-Throated Blue Warbler
(Dendroica caerulescens)
Inscribed "Great Pine Swamp Pensa August 11th," this painting of two female warblers was done in 1829. Audubon wrote that the bird "delights in the dark, humid parts of thick underwood, by the sides of small streams. It is very active, seizing much of its prey on wing, as well as among the leaves and bark of low trees." Wilson, thinking this a new species, called it the "pine swamp warbler," and Audubon followed suit. Both failed to realize that these are female black-throated blue warblers. Audubon later painted and correctly identified the male of this species. It was published as Plate CLV of The Birds of America. (Audubon's original for that plate is one of the two paintings that have apparently vanished and thus do not appear in this edition.) Audubon painted these birds on a sprig of hobble-bush, or witch-hobble (Viburnum alnifolium).
Source: The Original Water-Color Paintings by John James Audubon. Copyright 1966 by American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc.
Learn more about this print on the National Audubon Society's website.