Classic bird paintings
White-breasted Nuthatch painting: Audubon's plate and other classic portraits
John James Audubon painted the White-breasted Nuthatch as plate 152 of The Birds of America (1827–38), under the name White-breasted Black-capped Nuthatch. A free high-resolution scan is on Audubon.org. Shown here is plate 247 of his smaller octavo edition (1840–44): a male and two females on a dead stump.
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About this painting
This is plate 247 of the octavo edition, the book-size reprint of 1840 to 1844, where the bird goes by its short name, White-breasted Nuthatch. The faint lines behind the birds are type from the facing page, showing through the paper of the scan. One bird hangs head down from a twig, a habit Audubon describes in his text.
Audubon’s White-breasted Nuthatch: plate 152, “White-breasted Black-capped Nuthatch”
Audubon knew three kinds of nuthatch in the United States and predicted at least two more: a larger one in the woods near the Pacific, and one about this size near the Mexican border. He found the White-breasted the least common of the three, though in winter it came to the very doors of farmhouses, tapping under the eaves.
At the nest, he wrote, the female chisels the hole while the male carries away the chips and brings her food. He described its nasal call as hank, hank, and regretted that many farmers, mistaking it for the Downy Woodpecker, which they called the Sap-sucker, shot it.
Story: Audubon’s Ornithological Biography, vol. 2 (1834). See plate 152 free at Audubon.org.
More classic portraits, free to see
- John James Audubon, The Birds of America, octavo edition (1840–44), plate 247: “White-breasted Nuthatch” (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 103: “White-breasted Nuthatch”, with 4 other birds. Free scan (Internet Archive)
About the White-breasted Nuthatch
- White-breasted Nuthatches hide food in cracks in the bark during fall and winter. (Source: National Audubon Society)
The oldest known wild White-breasted Nuthatch lived at least 9 years and 9 months: it was banded in Colorado in 1962 and found there again in 1971. 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 152 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 White-breasted Nuthatch with the date and place you first saw one. See your own list as a book, free.