1. Blue-green Warbler (American Beautyberry

Fig. 9. The color of the berries is so outstanding they can’t be missed, but the flowers are very small and delicate and require a little closer inspection to be appreciated.

The blue-green warbler is actually a cerulean warbler Call: zee zee zee zizizizieeet

In Spring it has a soft and mellow song. Vol. 1, 258

—J. J. Audubon

SUMMeR oR WooD DUCk, Plate CCVI

Sycamore

Platanus occidentalis

An American sycamore tree can often be distinguished from other trees by its attractive exfoliating bark, which flakes off in irregular masses, leaving the greenish-white, gray, and brown surface mottled. The sycamore bark is rigid and does not stretch as the bark of other trees does. Thus, to accommodate the growth of the wood underneath, the tree sloughs it off, leaving a beautifully patterned bark (Keeler, 263-268). A few of the globe-shaped fruits are shown in this print. They will often stay on the tree throughout the winter, and if these are collected and planted in spring they will germinate readily. The seeds are eaten by several bird species: the gold finch, purple finch, chickadee, and dark-eyed junco. And as Audubon illustrates here, cavity-nesting birds such as owls, flycatchers, chimney swifts, and wood ducks, make their home in sycamore trees. A sycamore can grow to massive proportions, typically reaching 98 to 130 feet in height and as much as six-and-a-half feet in diameter when grown in deep soils. In 1770, George Washington recorded in his journal a sycamore measuring nearly 45 feet in circumference at three feet from the ground (Luthringer, 2007-03-22).

“The tree represented in the plate is the Platanus occidentalis, which in different parts of the United States is known by the names of Buttonwood, Sycamore, Plane-tree, and Water Beech, and in Canada by that of the Cotton-tree” (Audubon, Vol. 3, 62). Audubon spoke often in Britain of the great size to which American trees could grow. He had a sample of the sycamore sent to the Liverpool Royal Institution, requesting that the segment be of “the largest diameter that can be procured in the woods” and “the face of it … marked with the height of the tree” (Audubon, Journal, 208).

Year-round residents of Alabama, wood ducks (Aix sponsa) nest in the cavities of trees. They are fairly common in open woodlands near water.

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