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AUDUBON, John James (1785-1851)
Blue Crane or Heron, Ardea Coerulea. 1. Adult Male spring plumage. 2. Young second Year. View near Charlestone (sic) S.C. [Little Blue Heron] [Pl. 307]
[Pl. 307]. London: R. Havell, 1837. Hand-coloured engraving with aquatint and etching by R. Havell. Watermarked "J. Whatman/1837". Image size (including text): 18 7/8 x 28 inches. Sheet size: 24 5/8 x 37 inches.
From the first edition of "The Birds of America."
A beautiful and evocative composition: the sun has risen and is already warming this fertile river landscape near Charleston. A slight hazy mist still remains to be burnt off. In the foreground an adult bird emerges cautiously from the reed bed, with quick darting steps, making its way down to the water where an immature bird has already started feeding. No wind, comfortable warmth, little if any sound: a perfect late fall day in the South Carolina low country.
Audubon describes seeing "this graceful Heron, quietly and in silence walking along the margins of the water, with an elegance and grace which can never fail to please you. Each regularly-timed step is lightly measured, while the keen eye of the bird seeks for [movement]...Then at a proper distance, it darts forth its bill with astonishing celerity...If fish is plentiful, on the shallows near the shore, when it has caught one, it immediately swallows it, and runs briskly through the water, striking here and there, and thus capturing several in succession. Two or three dashes of this sort, afford sufficient nourishment for several hours, and when the bird has obtained enough it retires to some quiet place, and remains there in an attitude of repose until its hunger returns" (J. J. Audubon, The Birds of America, New York & Philadelphia: 1840-1844, vol. V, pp.53-54).
"Scattered among the immaculate egrets are the little blue herons, dark, smoky blue-gray birds with maroon necks...During the transition from white immaturity to blue adulthood they are boldly pied with white and dark, and at New Orleans, according to Audubon, were called 'foolish egrettes,' 'on account of their unusual tameness.' Such a bird is shown in the background of this [print]...that represents a scene in the South Carolina lowcountry. This species...was greatly diminished by the turn of the century before protective laws were put in effect. By the 1920's it began to show a definite comeback and postbreeding wanderers, especially the white immature birds, were again to be seen in the northern states. Today the little blue nests father north than it was known to nest in earlier times. Breeding colonies now exist...as far north as southern Maine and the Great Lakes" (R. T. & V. M. Peterson, Audubon's Birds of America, London: 1981, no.44).
Susanne M. Low, A Guide to Audubon's Birds of America, New Haven & New York: 2002, pp.161-162.
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#12120 $80,000.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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