Otto Widmann is unknown to the average Missourian but is an icon to those who study Missouri birds. Born in 1841 in Baden, Germany, he emigrated to St. Louis in 1867, where he worked as a pharmacist. He began documenting the local bird life along the Mississippi River, combing the deep woods that existed in that day along the River des Pere. Widmann quit his business in 1889, moved to Old Orchard, and devoted himself to study of Missouri birds. He developed a network of correspondents around the state but also traveled extensively. Consequently, he later wrote the first book summarizing Missouri birds, A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri, in 1907.
One of the most notable of Widmann’s travels took him to Dunklin County in May 1896. Railroads built to support logging in the swamps provided him with transportation. His first trip took him to a sawmill at the site of the present-day community of Arbyrd. Here, he had ready access to the vast swamps on the lower St. Francis River. The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811 to 1812 heavily altered these “St. Francis Sunklands.” The quakes thrust some sections of swamp upward, while other large areas sank, drowning existing forest. Sloughs and downed trees along the river made for difficult travel, but the railroad and a small skiff gave Widmann and his associate O. C. Poling access—albeit slowly.
Widmann noted that even locals avoided the woods in summer; according to Widmann, mostly because of “…the ticks, of … three kinds: the ordinary wood tick, … easily picked off before great damage is done; the seed tick, … more…dreaded because of its smaller size; but …worst of all … the … chigger, …hardly seen with the naked eye until it has entered the skin where it causes restless nights and suffering for weeks. This worthy trio forms a society for the protection of birds, more powerful than the best state laws.”
On his 1896 trip, Widmann found two rare swamp songbirds—Swainson’s Warbler and Bachman’s Warbler. He returned May 8, 1897, to Kolb Island, via the Paragould and Southeastern Railroad, 10 miles east of Paragould, Arkansas. In 10 days, he located numerous Bachman’s Warblers and recorded behaviors of this rarely observed bird. This culminated in his finding the first recorded nest and eggs of this species in blackberries in a tangled swamp on May 13.
Rev. John Bachman of South Carolina had first discovered Bachman’s Warbler in 1832, sending specimens to John James Audubon, who first described the species. Little further information accumulated on the species until the 1880s, when sightings increased throughout its breeding range in the southeastern U.S. through 1910. Thereafter, observations declined rapidly. It occurred in the Bootheel at several sites, including Cushion Lake in Pemiscot County, before 1920. The last sighting was a male west of Cardwell, Dunklin County, in 1948. The last confirmed sighting was in South Carolina in 1962, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared it extinct in 2023.
The causes of the disappearance of Bachman’s Warbler are unknown. It occurred mostly in second-growth bottomland forest with dense understory of cane, blackberry, or other low growth. It migrated to Cuba in winter, and one speculation is that more frequent hurricanes reduced its population.
One of Otto Widmann’s main contributions to North American Ornithology was the discovery in Missouri of the first known nest and eggs of Bachman’s Warbler. He would survive until 1933, passing at the age of 92, the dean of Missouri ornithologists.
