The Mocking Bird
A nest under attack by a rattlesnake — the plate that scandalized 19th-century ornithology.
- Work
- Mocking Bird, Plate 21, from The Birds of America
- Artist / naturalist
- John James Audubon (engraved by Robert Havell Jr.)
- Origin & date
- London, 1827
- Held by
- Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
$19.00
The story
Audubon's mockingbird plate depicts four birds defending a nest against a coiled rattlesnake climbing the tree to reach it — a scene rival naturalist George Ord and others in the London scientific establishment publicly ridiculed as fantasy, insisting rattlesnakes couldn't climb trees and accusing Audubon of inventing drama to sell subscriptions. Modern field observation has since confirmed the behavior is real, if uncommon, vindicating a plate that nearly cost Audubon his scientific credibility in his own lifetime. What to notice: the birds' postures read as genuine alarm rather than posed taxidermy — wings flared, beaks open mid-call — the exact naturalistic urgency Audubon's wired-specimen technique was built to capture, and precisely the quality his critics mistook for embellishment.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wikimedia Commons’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper: smooth, no glare.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guarantee.
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