Classic bird paintings

Red-winged Blackbird painting: Audubon's plate and other classic portraits

John James Audubon painted the Red-winged Blackbird as plate 67 of The Birds of America (1827–38), four birds on red maple, under the name Red-winged Starling. Audubon.org has a free high-resolution scan. The picture here is plate 216 of the octavo edition (1840–44), with three of the four birds.

Updated

A black male Red-winged Blackbird with red shoulder patches flying above two streaky brown birds on a flowering maple twig
Red-winged Blackbirds, an adult male, a young male and a female, on red maple, in Audubon's small octavo edition, plate 216. John James Audubon, The Birds of America (1840–44)

About this painting

This is the octavo edition’s plate 216, Red-winged Starling, from the 1840s: an adult male in flight, with a young male and a female on a red maple twig, three of the big plate’s four birds.

Audubon’s Red-winged Blackbird: plate 67, “Red-winged Starling”

Audubon called it the Red-winged Starling, or Marsh Blackbird, and painted four birds on a branch of red maple, a tree he says they visit in early spring to pick insects from the blossoms.

By early August, he wrote, the flocks come down on the cornfields in such numbers that they seem to cover them. A shot from the farmer's gun only moves them to another part of the field, and they use the scarecrows as lookout posts. Even so, he thought the insects they eat in spring were “a full equivalent for the corn which they eat at another period.”

Story: Audubon’s Ornithological Biography, vol. 1 (1831). See plate 67 free at Audubon.org. See plate 420 free at Audubon.org.

More classic portraits, free to see

  • John James Audubon, The Birds of America, octavo edition (1840–44), plate 215: “Red-and-black-shouldered Marsh-Blackbird”. Free scan (New York Public Library Digital Collections)
  • John James Audubon, The Birds of America, octavo edition (1840–44), plate 216: “Red-winged Starling” (the painting shown above). Free scan (New York Public Library Digital Collections)
  • Louis Agassiz Fuertes, for Elon H. Eaton’s Birds of New York (1910–14), plate 73: “Red-winged Blackbird”, with Rusty Blackbird and Bobolink. Free scan (Internet Archive)

About the Red-winged Blackbird

  • Red-winged Blackbirds usually search the ground for food, and outside the nesting season they feed in flocks. (Source: National Audubon Society)

The oldest known wild Red-winged Blackbird lived at least 14 years and 11 months: it was banded in Maryland in 2010 and found there again in 2023. That is a record from bird banding, not a typical lifespan. (Source: USGS Bird Banding Laboratory, 2025 longevity table.) How long do wild birds live?

Buying a print?

An original plate 67 is a hand-colored sheet about 26 by 38 inches, printed in Britain in 1827–38; many prints sold today are reproductions or small 1840s octavo prints. How to tell an original from a reproduction.

In a Birdfolio, the hardcover book of your own life list, this painting sits beside the Red-winged Blackbird with the date and place you first saw one. See your own list as a book, free.