Bachman's warbler (Vermivora bachmanii) is a possibly extinct passerine migratory bird. This warbler was a migrant, breeding in swampy blackberry and cane thickets of the Southeastern and Midwestern United States and wintering in Cuba. There are some reports of the bird from the twenty-first century, but none are widely accepted. Some authorities accept a Louisiana sighting in August 1988 as confirmed, but the last uncontroversial sightings date to the 1960s.

Taxonomy

This bird was first recorded in 1832 by the Reverend John Bachman, who found the species near Charleston, South Carolina, and presented study skins and descriptions to his friend and collaborator, John James Audubon. Audubon never saw the bird alive but named it in honor of Bachman in 1833.

The blue-winged and rapidly declining golden-winged warblers, also members of the genus Vermivora, are thought to be this warbler's closest relatives.

Description

thumb|Male (above) and female, by [[Louis Agassiz Fuertes]]

Bachman's warbler is a sexually dimorphic species and the adults have two distinct plumages, one in the spring and one in the fall. In the spring, adult males have a yellow forehead and supercilium. The rest of the breast and the belly is light yellow, blending into white on the undertail coverts. It is relatively small for a warbler and has a short tail. The song is similar to that of the northern parula, but distinguishable in that it was noticeably monotone.

While migrating, the species preferred bottomland forests, though it was reported in scrubby habitats as well. This species does not frequently pump its tail.

The main factor contributing to the species' decline was habitat destruction. Small-scale logging in the 1800s may actually have increased the Bachman warbler's breeding habitat.

In culture

John James Audubon's folio renderings of a male and female Bachman's warbler were painted on top of an illustration of the Franklinia tree first painted by Maria Martin, John Bachman's sister-in-law and one of the country's first female natural history illustrators.

In the comic strip Doonesbury, Dick Davenport, a bird watcher, died in 1986 of a massive coronary while observing and photographing this species, therefore proving its continued existence. This death scene has been noted as a particularly memorable one in the history of comics.

References

Further reading

  • Bachman's Warbler: A Species in Peril, second edition, by Paul B. Hamel. Full text online.
  • BirdLife Species Factsheet
  • Recording of a singing Bachman's warbler, from Cornell's Macaulay Library