In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, he paints a stark metaphoric image of winter.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

Here in east-central Alabama, we are fortunate to be home to many feathered denizens of the winter landscape. This exhibition features twelve of John James Audubon’s prints from The Birds of America, including birds that inhabit our environs during the winter.

John James Audubon’s Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America: A Context

John James Audubon said of his 1843 western journey, “I am going to collect all possible information about Quadrupeds during my stay here and from good sources. My head is actually swimming with excitement and I cannot write any more.” Supported by his four traveling companions and a rugged array of American Fur Company hunters, the great American woodsman was the impresario of what became an excessive, indulgent sporting trip on an epic scale that resulted in some of the most vivid and appealing accounts of hunting, adventure and wild animal life on the distant western prairies that had been published. His experience on the prairies also enabled him to render his lithographic images of the large predators and game animals all the more bold and charismatic.

—Daniel Patterson, from The Missouri River Journals of John James Audubon (2016)