Mourning Warbler by Tom Sanford

Location: 700 W. 175th Street, New York, NY 10033

Installed: 11/18/21

About the Bird: More likely heard than seen, the Mourning Warbler lives, forages, and sings its repetitious chant from shrubbery low to the ground. The black throat patch on male birds inspired its sorrowful name. The Mourning Warbler migrates overland through Mexico and Texas鈥攗nlike many migrants that instead cross the Gulf of Mexico鈥攖o reach breeding grounds in the far northern United States and Canada. If temperatures rise by three degrees Celsius, 90 percent of the bird鈥檚 breeding range may be lost; keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will cut those losses in half.

About the Artist:聽American artist聽聽was born in New York in 1975 and spent his formative years in the United Kingdom. He has lived in Harlem since 1994.聽Over the course of a career spanning the 21st century, Sanford has exhibited in New York, London, Los Angeles, Rome, Luxembourg, Copenhagen, Naples, Chicago, Madrid, Barcelona, Singapore, Tokyo, and a few places you may not have heard of. He chose to paint the Mourning Warbler as a tribute to his father-in-law,聽Cliff Lloyd, who had recently passed away. "It's a beautiful bird," Sanford聽says. He also appreciated the way it so perfectly fit the atypical聽space.

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