A Red-Flourish Feathursday
Today we present a chromolithograph of a male Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea), a male and female Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus), and a male and female Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) from a painting by German naturalist and artist Anton Goering (1836-1905), reproduced in our 2-volume set of Our Native Birds of Song and Beauty by the late-19th-century director of the Milwaukee Public Museum Henry Nehrling, and published in Milwaukee by George Brumder from 1893-1896.
The Tanager and Grosbeak are currently in the Cardinal family, while the Towhee is a sparrow. All three are fairly common in our neighborhood, but unfortunately, we rarely see them. However, we do hear them, or at least we think we hear them, since the song of the Tanager and Grosbeak are similar, and even worse, they both sound, to our ears, somewhat similar to the very common American Robin, which is an unrelated thrush:
Rese-breasted Grosbeak song
Fortunately, the Towhee has a very distinctive call that we find easily recognizable:
Because German was prominently spoken in Milwaukee through the middle of the 20th century, these birds are also identified in Nehrling's book by their common German names:
Scarlet Tanager = Scharlachtangara
Rose-breasted Grosbeak = Rosenbrüstiger Kernbeisser
View more posts from Nehrling’s Our Native Birds.
View more Feathursday posts.
