Plate 89 – Nashville Warbler

It was near Nashville, Tennessee, that Alexander Wilson (1766-1813) first documented for science the Nashville warbler. John James Audubon saw only a few Nashville warblers while living and working in Louisiana. The only other place he encountered the bird was while living and working in Kentucky. The Nashville warbler favors open woodland areas and bushes and brush. For Birds of America, Audubon placed the Nashville warbler with one of the most familiar native bushes in the eastern United States. Audubon called the plant Swamp spice. It is now more commonly known as Northern spicebush (Lindera benzoin). 4,000 Nashville warblers is the most that have been counted in North America according to Cornell’s e-Bird system. The birds were counted during a fallout far from Nashville at the Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory just outside of Austin, Texas, on October 12, 2000 (see eBird Checklist S3090660).