Plate 29 – Towhee Bunting

In the fall of 1813, John James Audubon set out on a lonely walk to Louisville, Kentucky, from his home in Henderson hoping to work out trade business opportunities to support him and his wife and children. Much of the area between Henderson and Louisville is a part of Kentucky known as the barrens (see Plate 14). The barrens are made up mostly of rocky and porous ground that only certain plants can tolerate. Some of the plants, it seems, also do well because of how intolerant they are of humans. Moving across the barrens, Audubon lamented the “impenetrable patches of briars, sumach [sic], prickly ash, and different species of smilax.” Many birds, on the other hand, thrive in such conditions, such as the Towhee Bunting or the bird commonly known today as the Eastern Towhee. Audubon concludes, “In the Barrens of Kentucky they are found in the greatest abundance.” As attractive and interesting as the Eastern towhee is in the drawing, it is almost as if it is the sharp prickles of a blackberry bush that Audubon really wants the viewer to notice.