For John James Audubon, the song of the Wood Thrush was his “greatest favourite of the feathered tribes of our woods.” Audubon added, “The song of the Wood Thrush, although composed of but few notes, is so powerful, distinct, clear, and mellow, that it is impossible for any person to hear it without being struck by the effect which it produces on the mind, for I really know none so melodious and harmonical.” It was also birds like the Wood Thrush that helped keep Audubon believing that it was worth the risks he took and the sacrifices he made to complete Birds of America. “To it I owe much. How often has it revived my drooping spirits, when I have listened to its wild notes in the forest.”
Audubon pictured the Wood Thrush in “a low horizontal branch of the [Flowering] dogwood tree.” The Wood thrush is partial to the tree for nesting and for eating the berries of the tree in the fall. Although, Flowering dogwoods in forests of the eastern United States are much less common today due to timber harvesting, urban sprawl, and competition from invasive plants such as Bush honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) and Kudzu (Pueraria lobata). Fewer branches of dogwoods on which to perch and belt out its melodious and harmonical song and other habitat loss have made the greatest favorite of Audubon much harder to see and hear than it once was.