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Updated: May 5, 2025
Of our small wood-birds we have three varieties east of the Mississippi, closely related to each other, which I have already spoken of, and which walk, and sing, more or less, on the wing, namely the two species of water-thrush or wagtails, and the oven-bird or wood-wagtail. The latter is the most common, and few observers of the birds can have failed to notice its easy, gliding walk.
We have many more melodious songsters; the bobolink in the meadows for instance, the vesper sparrow in the pastures, the purple finch in the groves, the winter wren, or any of the thrushes in the woods, or the wood-wagtail, whose air song is of a similar character to that of the skylark, and is even more rapid and ringing, and is delivered in nearly the same manner; but our birds all stop when the skylark has only just begun.
A seeker of birds, and ever on the alert for some new acquaintance, my attention was arrested, on first entering the swamp, by a bright, lively song, or warble, that issued from the branches overhead, and that was entirely new to me, though there was something in the tone that told me the bird was related to the wood-wagtail and to the water-wagtail or thrush.
Another bird which has interested me here is the Louisiana water thrush, called also large-billed water-thrush, and water-wagtail. It is one of a trio of birds which has confused the ornithologists much. The other two species are the well-known golden-crowned thrush or wood-wagtail, and the northern, or small, water-thrush.
The song of the wood-wagtail, he says, consists of a "short succession of simple notes beginning with emphasis and gradually falling." The truth is, they run up the scale instead of down, beginning low and ending in a shriek. Yet considering the extent of Audubon's work, the wonder is the errors are so few.
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