Bachman’s Warbler (Sylvia Bachmanii), Volume 2, Plate 185

Audubon’s collaborator, the Charleston minister and naturalist John Bachman (1790–1874), discovered the species and, in 1833, sent a pair of the birds to Audubon, along with the watercolor of the Franklin Tree (Franklinina alatamaha) made by his sister–in–law (and later wife), Maria Martin (1796–1863). In the fall of 1833, after his return from Labrador, Audubon painted a male warbler over the Franklinia’s stem and added a female below.

Note how the expansive blossoms of the beautiful tree seem to push the little male bird to the side. Its yellow underbelly-more luminous than that of the female-links it to the yellow stamen clusters of the Franklinia. The female, in the lower right corner, seems to have been added almost as an afterthought. Separated by the flowers, the two little birds seem to ask the viewer to make the necessary connection between them. The last unconfirmed sighting of Bachman’s Warbler took place in Louisiana in 1988; the species is now considered virtually extinct. Audubon had never seen it alive; not willing to have his ornithological expertise challenged, he seems to have intended his painting primarily as a tribute to Maria Martin the botanist.

From John James Audubon’s Ornithological Biography

My friend BACHMAN has the merit of having discovered this pretty little species of Warbler, and to him I have the pleasure of acknowledging my obligations for the pair which you will find represented in the plate, accompanied with a figure of one of the most beautiful of our southern flowers, originally drawn by my friend’s sister, MISS MARTIN. I myself have never had the good fortune to meet with any individuals of this interesting Sylvia, respecting which little is as yet known, its discoverer having only procured a few specimens of both sexes, without being able to find a nest. The first obtained was found by him a few miles from Charleston, in South Carolina, in July 1833, while I was rambling over the crags of Labrador. According to my amiable friend, it was “a lively active bird, gliding among the branches of thick bushes, occasionally mounting on the wing and seizing insects in the air in the manner of a Flycatcher. It was an old female that had to all appearance just reared a brood of young.” Shortly after, several were seen in the same neighbourhood; so that we may yet expect an account of its manners, migration, and breeding, which may find a place in a subsequent volume of my work.