On May 8, 1837, .John James Audubon arrived in the capital of the newly born nation of Texas. Only the wood skeleton of the capitol building was in place when Audubon asked directions for the residence of the person who was going to be the first president of the Republic of Texas. Sam Houston (1793-1863) greeted Audubon wearing a velvet coat, trousers trimmed with gold-lace, and a frilled cravat. There must have been a certain amount of disappointment when Audubon informed Houston that the purpose of his visit was to search for and identify birds rather than settling in and offering assistance with the establishment of law and order in the new nation.
Of the birds that Audubon documented as “abundant” in Houston was the Golden-crowned Thrush. In the later octavo edition of Birds of America, Audubon changed the name of the bird that Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) called a Golden-crowned Thrush to a Golden-crowned wagtail. Audubon wrote that on one occasion that he found the nest of a Golden-crowned wagtail “on the ground, among dry leaves or decayed moss, and is neatly formed of grasses, both inside and out, arched over with a thick mass of the same material, covered by leaves, twigs, and such grasses as are found in the neighborhood. A small aperture is left on one side, just sufficient to admit the owner… The nest is so like an oven, that the children in many places call this species the ‘Oven Bird.’ ” And so it is that the current common name for the Golden-crowned wagtail is the Ovenbird.
Audubon considered the Ovenbird as “resident” in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. According to Cornell’s e-Bird system, an abundant or resident number of Ovenbirds in Texas can be no more than a few dozen. On April 30, 2012, Morgan Tingley recorded the most Ovenbirds anywhere in North America. The 500 birds were counted in Florida at the Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park (see eBird Checklist S10588708).