Bachman's Warbler, 2022
mixed media on paper with metallic accents
5.125" x 7"
SOLD
From the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposal for removing 23 species from the Federal Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants due to extinction:
The Bachman's warbler (
Vermivora bachmanii
) was listed on March 11, 1967 (32 FR 4001), as endangered under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, as a result of the loss of breeding and wintering habitat.
The Bachman's warbler was first named in 1833 as
Sylvia bachmanii
based on a bird observed in a swamp near Charleston, South Carolina (AOU 1983, pp. 601-602). The Bachman's warbler was among the smallest warblers with a total length of 11.0 to 11.5 centimeters (cm) (4.3 to 4.5 inches (in)). The species was found in the southeastern portions of the United States from the south Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains, extending inland in floodplains of major rivers (eastern Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, bootheel of Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolinas, Virginia, and flyovers in Florida). However, breeding was documented only in northeast Arkansas, southeast Missouri, southwest Kentucky, central Alabama, and
southeast South Carolina. Bachman's warbler was a neotropical migrant; historically, the bulk of the species' population left the North American mainland each fall for Cuba and Isle of Pines.
The Bachman's warbler was one of the smallest warblers with a total length of 11.0 to 11.5 cm. The bill was slender with a slight downward curve in both sexes and was a unique feature within the genus. The male was olive-green above with yellow forehead, lores, eye-ring, chin, and underparts; a black throat and crown; and dusky wings and tail. Males also had a yellow shoulder patch and bright rump. Generally, while similar, plumage of females was paler. Females lacked any black coloration and had olive green upperparts with yellow forehead and underparts. The eye-ring was whiter than in the males, and the crown was grayish. The dark patch on the throat was usually missing and the eye-ring was pale. Females had a buffy or bright yellowish forehead and a gray crown with no black; a whitish or white crissum; and less pronounced white spots on the tail.
At breeding grounds, the loss of habitat from clearing of large tracts of palustrine (
i.e.,
having trees, shrubs, or emergent vegetation) wetland beginning in the 1800s was a major factor in the decline of the Bachman's warbler. Most of the palustrine habitat in the Mississippi Valley (and large proportions in Florida) was historically converted to agriculture or affected by other human activities (Fretwell
et al.
1996, pp. 8, 10, 124, 246). Often the higher, drier portions of land that the Bachman's warbler required for breeding were the first to be cleared because they were more accessible and least prone to flooding (Hamel 1995, pp. 5, 11; Service 2015, p. 4). During World Wars I and II, many of the remaining large tracts of old growth bottomland forest were cut, and the timber was used to support the war effort (Jackson 2020, Conservation and Management, p. 2). At the wintering grounds of Cuba, extensive loss of primary forest wintering habitat occurred due to the clearing of large areas of the lowlands for sugarcane production (Hamel 2018, p. 24). Hurricanes also may have caused extensive damage to habitat and direct loss of overwintering Bachman's warblers. Five hurricanes occurred between November 1932 and October 1935. Two storms struck western Cuba in October 1933, and the November 1932 hurricane is considered one of the most destructive ever recorded. These hurricanes, occurring when Bachman's warblers would have been present at their wintering grounds in Cuba, may have resulted in large losses of the birds