Hunting Digital Plumes in the US and Beyond: Lady Warblers of the West (plus one of the East)

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Lady Warblers of the West (plus one of the East)

[Mt. Lemmon, AZ. April, August 2015]

Gentleman warblers are well known to birders -- Audubon's, Wilson's, Kirtland's, Townsend's, Swainson's, MacGillivray's, ... to name but a few. However, how many of us are acquainted with our Lady Warblers?

This imbalance in nomenclature is surely a consequence of the regrettable historical fact that, earlier (although true to some degree even now), men and women have been role-bound by gender. And, in the 1700 and 1800's when the birdlife of America was being scientifically documented, men explorers greatly outnumbered women and were generally inspired by their own kind. Nonetheless, some warblers were indeed named after women. And, though smaller in number, our lady warblers are equally striking and deserve every birder's due consideration, and in light of their naming origins, perhaps also our outright fascination.

The mission, then, of this post is to highlight, out of a total of 50-odd warbler species in the US, the only four that are named after women. And this mission was brought to delightful fruition thanks to a recent trip to Arizona.

Accordingly, we shall review a quartet of lady warblers: Lucy's, Grace's and Virgina's Warblers of the West; as well as Blackburnian Warbler of the Eastern US; in addition, we shall also profile the women behind the names.

We start with Grace's Warbler which is named after Grace Coues. Grace's Warbler was collected by her brother, Elliot Coues, in 1864. Elliot turned over the specimen to Spencer Baird who was responsible for its scientific description. Elliot asked Baird to name the newly discovered species after his sister, Grace, who, at the time, was but a teenager. Grace grew up to live a distinguished life -- marrying the US Ambassador to Switzerland, Charles Page in 1868 and, upon her husband's death, remarried to wed the publisher Dana Estes in 1884.

Grace's Warbler observed at Rose Canyon, Mt. Lemmon

Grace's Warbler has a limited range in the US -- it is a summer breeder mainly found in mountain pine forests of Arizona and New Mexico but it is also seen somewhat uncommonly in similar habitat in adjacent states.

Next, Lucy's Warbler. This warbler was named by Dr. Cooper after Spencer Baird's daughter's Lucy (the same Spencer Baird who named Grace's Warbler). This is a tiny warbler and is unique in being our only desert warbler -- thriving in habitat that would be considered too arid for other wood warblers.

Lucy's Warbler observed at Molino Basin, Mt. Lemmon

Lucy's Warbler is best seen in Arizona where it is quite common in appropriate habitat. This blogger has also observed this warbler at Big Bend NP in Texas where a small population can be sighted. Plumed in delicate shades of cream and grey, this warbler has a rusty crown patch that is usually visible.

Our final Lady Warbler of the West is Virginia's Warbler:

Virginia's Warbler observed at Summerhaven, Mt. Lemman

Similar to how Grace's Warbler was named, Baird named this warbler after the collector's wishes -- in this case, Dr. William Andersen. A surgeon in the US Army, Dr. Andersen desired that the warbler's name should serve to immortalize his wife -- Virginia. This warbler is probably more widely distributed relative to Grace's and Lucy's -- being found in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. Virginia's Warbler has grey upperparts and white undersides; there is yellow on both the breast and vent; the white eye-rings are quite prominent.

And, lest we forget, we do indeed have a single Lady Warbler in the East -- Blackburnian Warbler which is named after the Englishwoman Anna Blackburne (1726 -- 1793). Mrs. Blackburne (as she preferred to be known although she never married) was a patron of Ornithology and owned a museum in Lancashire, England. It was her brother, Ashton Blackburne, who collected the type specimen and the species was named after Anna by the German zoologist Philipp Ludwig Statius Muller in 1776.

Blackburnian Warbler seen at Magee Marsh, OH

The Blackburnian Warbler outshines most other warblers with its drop-dead gorgeous looks -- a flame-colored throat and face -- the latter showing bold black markings -- set against white undersides and black upperparts. It is a perennial favorite at migration hotspots such as Magee Marsh where it is commonly observed.

Our "Lady Warblers" are a delightful assortment of songbirds that not only typify signature species of the Warbler family but also profile the women in the life of our early explorers and naturalists. Accordingly, the reader is exhorted to discover these 4 warblers that are not only photogenic but also historically significant.

1 comment:

Bob Pelkey said...: Lucy's Warbler is my favorite warbler highlighted in this post as "our only desert warbler." The rusty patch also reminds me of kinglets.; August 24, 2015 at 12:08 PM

What is Plume Hunting?

Plume hunting was big business in the late 1800's. Unfortunately, the dark side to the beauty of plumes led to the slaughter of millions of birds so women could wear fancy hats (Read about Plume Hunting).

Thankfully, in this age of digitization, we can capture most anything we want -- books, music, video, etc. -- digitally. And, with the advent of digital photography at the turn of the millennium, we can once again hunt for plumes -- but digitally; with none of the accompanying destruction. This blog is dedicated to capturing the beauty of nature reflected through the incredible diversity of our avifauna.

Reproduced below is ecofeminist Celia Thaxter's, "Woman’s Heartlessness" (Boston 1886; reproduced from Google Books) which was published at the time when plumes were worth their weight in gold and many species of birds were fast headed toward extinction:

WOMAN’S HEARTLESSNESS
By Celia Laighton Thaxter

When the Audubon Society was first organized, it seemed a comparatively simple thing to awaken in the minds of all bird-wearing women a sense of what their “decoration” involved. We flattered ourselves that the tender and compassionate heart of woman would at once respond to the appeal for mercy, but after many months of effort we are obliged to acknowledge ourselves mistaken in our estimate of that universal compassion, that tender heart in which we believed. Not among the ignorant and uncultivated so much as the educated and enlightened do we find the indifference and hardness that baffles and perplexes us. Not always, heaven be praised! But too often,--I think I may say in two-thirds of the cases to which we appeal. One lady said to me, “I think there is a great deal of sentiment wasted on the birds. There are so many of them, they will never be missed any more than mosquitoes. I shall put birds on my new bonnet.” This was a fond and devoted mother, a cultivated and accomplished woman. It seemed a desperate case, indeed, but still I strove with it. “Why do you give yourself so much trouble?” she asked. “They will soon go out of fashion, and there will be an end of it.” That may be,” I replied, “but fashion next year may order them back again, and how many women will have human feeling enough to refuse to wear them? It was merely waste of breath, however, and she went her way, a charnel-house of beaks and claws and bones and feathers and glass eyes upon her fatuous head.

Another, mockingly, says, “Why don’t you try to save the little fishes in the sea?” and continues to walk the world with dozens of warblers’ wings making her headgear hideous. Not one in fifty is found willing to remove at once the birds from her head, even if, languidly, she does acquiesce in the assertion that it is a cruel sin against nature to destroy them. “When these are worn out I am willing to promise not to buy any more,” is what we hear, and we are thankful, indeed, for even so much grace; but alas! birds never “wear out.” And as their wearer does not carry a placard stating their history, that they were bought last year, or perhaps given to her, and she does not intend to buy any more, her economy goes on setting the bad example, or it may be her indolence is to blame, one is as fatal as the other. Occasionally, but too rarely, we meet with a fine spirit, the fire of whose generous impulse consumes at once all selfish considerations, who recognizes the importance of her own responsibility, and whose action is swift as her thought to pluck our the murderous sign, and go forth free of its dishonor. And how refreshing is the sight of the birdless bonnet! The face beneath, no matter how plain it may be, seems to possess a gentle charm. She might have had birds, this woman, for they are cheap and plentiful enough, heaven knows! But she has them not, therefore she must wear within things infinitely precious,--namely, good sense, good taste, good feeling. Heaven bless every woman who dares turn her back on Fashion and go about thus beautifully adorned!

In one of the most widely circulated newspapers the fashionable news from Paris begins: “Birds are worn more than ever.” Birds “are worn!” Pitiful phrase! Sentence of deadly significance! “Birds are worn,”—as if that were final, as if all women must follow one another like a flock of sheep over a wall, and forget reason, forget the human heart within, forget everything but the empty pride of being “in the fashion.” Ah me, my fire-flecked oriole, watching your airy cradle from the friendly swinging elm bough, go get yourself an inky coat. Your beauty makes you but a target for the accursed gun that shatters your lovely life, quenches your delicious voice, destroys your love, your bliss, your dutiful cares, your whole beautiful being, that your dead body may disfigure some woman’s head and call all eyes to gaze at her! But no,--that will not save you. Blackbirds are not safe, they “are worn.” Carrion crows “are worn,” unsavory scavengers though they be. No matter on what they may have fed,--they “are worn.” Soar, swift sea-swallow,--I would it could be millions of miles away from the haunts of men; to the uttermost parts of the earth and the ocean carry your grace, your slender loveliness of shape, your matchless delicacy of tint and tone of color, soft, wondrous like gray cloud and silvery snow,--fly! dear and beautiful creature; seek the centre of the storm, the heart of the Arctic cold, the winter blast, they are not so unkind as—woman’s vanity. Do I not see you every day, your mocking semblance writhing as if in agony round female heads,--still and stark, sharp wings and tail pointing in stiff distress to heaven, your dried and ghastly head and beak dragged down to point to the face below, as if saying, “She did it.” The albatross of the Ancient Mariner is not more dreadful. Yesterday I saw three of you on one hat! Three terns at once, a horrible confusion of death and dismay.

Does any woman imagine these withered corpses (cured with arsenic) which she loves to carry about, are beautiful? Not so; the birds lost their beauty with their lives. Today I saw a mat woven of warblers' heads, spiked all over its surface with sharp beaks, set up on a bonnet and borne aloft by its possessor in pride! Twenty murders on one! and the face beneath bland and satisfied, for are not "Birds to be worn more than ever?" Flit, sandpiper, from the sea's margin to some loneliness remote and safe from the noble race of man! No longer in the soft May twilight call from cove to cove along the shore in notes that seem to breathe the very spirit of tender joy, of happy love, of sweet content; tones that mingle so divinely with the warm waves' murmur, with the south wind's balm, and sound in music through the dusk, long after the last crimson flash of sunset has faded from the sky year after year you come back to make your nest in the place you know and love, but you shall not live your humble, blissful, dutiful life, you shall not guard your treasured home, nor rejoice when your little ones break the silence with their first cry to you for food. You shall not shelter and protect and care for them with the same divine instinct you share with human mothers. No, some woman wants your corpse to carry on her head. You shall die that vanity, that "Fashion" may live.

I fear we no longer deserve these golden gifts of God. I would the birds could all emigrate to some friendlier planet peopled by a nobler race than ours, where they might live their sweet lives unmolested, and be treated with the respect, the consideration, and the grateful love which are their due. For we have almost forfeited our right to the blessing of their presence.

But still we venture to hope for a better future, still the Audubon and other societies work with heart and soul, to protect and save them, and we trust yet to see the day when women, one and all, will look upon the wearing of birds in its proper light,--namely, as a sign of heartlessness and a mark of ignominy and reproach.

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Thursday, August 20, 2015

Lady Warblers of the West (plus one of the East)

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