Part 16
The jet necklace worn on this bird's breast is its best mark of identification. Its form is particularly slender and graceful, as might be expected in a bird so active, one to whom a hundred tiny insects barely afford a dinner that must often be caught piecemeal as it flies past. To satisfy its appetite, which cannot but be dainty in so thoroughly charming a bird, it lives in low, boggy woods, in such retreats as Wilson's black-capped warbler selects for a like reason. Neither of these two "flycatcher" warblers depends altogether on catching insects on the wing; countless thousands are picked off the under sides of leaves and about the stems of twigs in true warbler fashion.
The Canadian's song is particularly loud, sweet, and vivacious. It is hazardous for any one without long field practice to try to name any warbler by its song alone, but possibly this one's animated music is as characteristic as any.
The nest is built on the ground on a mossy bank or elevated into the root crannies of some large tree, where there is much water in the woods. Bits of bark, dead wood, moss, and fine rootlets, all carefully wrapped with leaves, go to make the pretty cradle. Unhappily, the little Canada warblers are often cheated out of their natural rights, like so many other delightful songbirds, by the greedy interloper that the cowbird deposits in their nest.
HOODED WARBLER (Sylvania mitrata) Wood Warbler family
Length -- 5 to 5.75 inches. About an inch shorter than the English sparrow. Male -- Head, neck, chin, and throat black like a hood in mature male specimens only. Hood restricted, or altogether wanting in female and young. Upper parts rich olive. Forehead, cheeks, and underneath yellow. Some conspicuous white on tail feathers. Female -- Duller, and with restricted cowl. Range -- United States east of Rockies, and from southern Michigan and southern New England to West Indies and tropical America, where it winters. Very local. Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
This beautifully marked, sprightly little warbler might be mistaken in his immaturity for the yellowthroat; and as it is said to take him nearly three years to grow his hood, with the completed cowl and cape, there is surely sufficient reason here for the despair that often seizes the novice in attempting to distinguish the perplexing warblers. Like its Southern counterpart, the hooded warbler prefers wet woods and low trees rather than high ones, for much of its food consists of insects attracted by the dampness, and many of them must be taken on the wing. Because of its tireless activity the bird's figure is particularly slender and graceful -- a trait, too, to which we owe all the glimpses of it we are likely to get throughout the summer. It has a curious habit of spreading its tail, as if it wished you to take special notice of the white spots that adorn it; not flirting it, as the redstart does his more gorgeous one, but simply opening it like a fan as it flies and darts about.
Its song, which is particularly sweet and graceful, and with more variation than most warblers' music, has been translated "Che-we-eo-tsip, tsip, che-we-eo," again interpreted by Mr. Chapman as "You must come to the woods, or you won't see me."
KENTUCKY WARBLER (Geothlypis formosa) Wood Warbler family
Length -- 5.5 inches. Nearly an inch shorter than the English sparrow. Male -- Upper parts olive-green; under parts yellow; a yellow line from the bill passes over and around the eye. Crown of head, patch below the eye, and line defining throat, black. Female -- Similar, but paler, and with grayish instead of black markings. Range -- United States eastward from the Rockies, and from Iowa and Connecticut to Central, America, where it winters. Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
No bird is common at the extreme limits of its range, and so this warbler has a reputation for rarity among the New England ornithologists that would surprise people in the middle South and Southwest. After all that may be said in the books, a bird is either common or rare to the individual who may or may not have happened to become acquainted with it in any part of its chosen territory. Plenty of people in Kentucky, where we might judge from its name this bird is supposed to be most numerous, have never seen or heard of it, while a student on the Hudson River, within sight of New York, knows it intimately. It also nests regularly in certain parts of the Connecticut Valley. "Who is my neighbor?" is often a question difficult indeed to answer where birds are concerned. In the chapter, "Spring at the Capital," which, with every reading of "Wake Robin," inspires the bird-lover with fresh zeal, Mr. Burroughs writes of the Kentucky warbler: "I meet with him in low, damp places, in the woods, usually on the steep sides of some little run. I hear at intervals a clear, strong, bell-like whistle or warble, and presently catch a glimpse of the bird as he jumps up from the ground to take an insect or worm from the under side of a leaf. This is his characteristic movement. He belongs to the class of ground warblers, and his range is very low, indeed lower than that of any other species with which I am acquainted."
Like the ovenbird and comparatively few others, for most birds hop over the ground, the Kentucky warbler walks rapidly about, looking for insects under the fallen leaves, and poking his inquisitive beak into every cranny where a spider may be lurking. The bird has a pretty, conscious way of flying up to a perch, a few feet above the ground, as a tenor might advance towards the footlights of a stage, to pour forth his clear, penetrating whistle, that in the nesting season especially is repeated over, and over again with tireless persistency.
MAGNOLIA WARBLER (Dendroica maculosa) Wood Warbler family
Called also: BLACK-AND-YELLOW WARBLER; SPOTTED WARBLER; BLUE-HEADED YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER
Length -- 4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Crown of head slate-color, bordered on either side by a white line; a black line, apparently running through the eye, and a yellow line below it, merging into the yellow throat. Lower back and under parts yellow. Back, wings, and tail blackish olive. Large white patch on the wings, and the middle of the tail-quills white. Throat and sides heavily streaked with black. Female -- Has greener back, is paler, and has less distinct markings. Range -- North America, from Hudson Bay to Panama. Summers from northern Michigan and northern New England northward; winters in Central America and Cuba. Migrations -- May. October. Spring and summer migrant.
In spite of the bird's name, one need not look for it in the glossy magnolia trees of the southern gardens more than in the shrubbery on New England lawns, and during the migrations it is quite as likely to be found in one place as in the other. Its true preference, however, is for the spruces and hemlocks of its nesting ground in the northern forests. For these it deserts us after a brief hunt about the tender, young spring foliage and blossoms, where the early worm lies concealed, and before we have become so well acquainted with its handsome clothes that we will instantly recognize it in the duller ones it wears on its return trip in the autumn. The position of the white marks on the tail feathers of this warbler, however, is the clue by which it may be identified at any season or any stage of its growth. If the white bar runs across the middle of the warbler's tail, you can be sure of the identity of the bird. A nervous and restless hunter, it nevertheless seems less shy than many of its kin. Another pleasing characteristic is that it brings back with it in October the loud, clear, rapid whistle with which it has entertained its nesting mate in the Canada woods through the summer.
MOURNING WARBLER (Geothlypis philadelphia) Wood Warbler family
Called also: MOURNING GROUND WARBLER
Length -- 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Gray head and throat; the breast gray; the feathers with black edges that make them look crinkled, like crape. The black markings converge into a spot on upper breast. Upper parts, except head, olive. Underneath rich yellow. Female -- Similar, but duller; throat and breast buff and dusky where the male is black. Back olive-green. Range -- "Eastern North America; breeds from eastern Nebraska, northern New York, and Nova Scotia northward, and south ward along the Alleghanies to Pennsylvania. Winters in the tropics." -- Chapman. Migrations -- May. September. Spring and autumn migrant.
Since Audubon met with but one of these birds in his incessant trampings, and Wilson secured only an immature, imperfectly marked specimen for his collection, the novice may feel no disappointment if he fails to make the acquaintance of this "gay and agreeable widow." And yet the shy and wary bird is not unknown in Central Park, New York City. Even where its clear, whistled song strikes the ear with a startling novelty that invites to instant pursuit of the singer, you may look long and diligently through the undergrowth without finding it. Dr. Merriam says the whistle resembles the syllables "true, true, true, tru, too, the voice rising on the first three syllables and falling on the last two." In the nesting season this song is repeated over and over again with a persistency worthy of a Kentucky warbler. It is delivered from a perch within a few feet of the ground, as high as the bird seems ever inclined to ascend.
NASHVILLE WARBLER (Helminthophila ruficapilla) Wood Warbler family
Length -- 4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Olive-green above; yellow underneath. Slate-gray head and neck. Partially concealed chestnut patch on crown. Wings and tail olive-brown and without markings. Female -- Dull olive and paler, with brownish wash underneath. Range -- North America, westward to the plains; north to the Fur Countries, and south to Central America and Mexico. Nests north of Illinois and northern New England; winters in tropics. Migrations -- April. September or October.
It must not be thought that this beautiful warbler confines itself to backyards in the city of Nashville simply because Wilson discovered it near there and gave it a local name, for the bird's actual range reaches from the fur trader's camp near Hudson Bay to the adobe villages of Mexico and Central America, and over two thousand miles east and west in the United States. It chooses open rather than dense woods and tree-bordered fields. It seems to have a liking for hemlocks and pine trees, especially if near a stream that attracts insects to its shores; and Dr. Warren notes that in Pennsylvania he finds small flocks of these warblers in the autumn migration, feeding in the willowy trees near little rivers and ponds. Only in the northern parts of the United States is their nest ever found, for the northern British provinces are their preferred nesting ground. One seen in the White Mountains was built on a mossy, rocky edge, directly on the ground at the foot of a pine tree, and made of rootlets, moss, needles from the trees overhead, and several layers of leaves outside, with a lining of fine grasses that cradled four white, speckled eggs.
Audubon likened the bird's feeble note to the breaking of twigs.
PINE WARBLER (Dendroica vigorsii) Wood Warbler family
Called also: PINE-CREEPING WARBLER
Length -- 5.5 to 6 inches. A trifle smaller than the English sparrow. Male -- Yellowish olive above; clear yellow below, shading to grayish white, with obscure dark streaks on side of breast. Two whitish wing-bars; two outer tail feathers partly white. Female -- Duller; grayish white only faintly tinged with yellow underneath. Range -- North America, east of the Rockies; north to Manitoba, And south to Florida and the Bahamas. Winters from southern Illinois southward. Migrations -- March or April. October or later. Common summer resident.
The pine warbler closely presses the myrtle warbler for the first place in the ranks of the family migrants, but as the latter bird often stays north all winter, it is usually given the palm. Here is a warbler, let it be recorded, that is fittingly named, for it is a denizen of pine woods only; most common in the long stretches of pine forests at the south and in New York and New England, and correspondingly uncommon wherever the woodsman's axe has laid the pine trees low throughout its range. Its "simple, sweet, and drowsy song," writes Mr. Parkhurst, is always associated "with the smell of pines on a sultry day." It recalls that of the junco and the social sparrow or chippy.
Creeping over the bark of trees and peering into every crevice like a nuthatch; running along the limbs, not often hopping nervously or flitting like the warblers; darting into the air for a passing insect, or descending to the ground to feed on seeds and berries, the pine warbler has, by a curious combination, the movements that seem to characterize several different birds.
It is one of the largest and hardiest members of its family, but not remarkable for its beauty. It is a sociable traveller, cheerfully escorting other warblers northward, and welcoming to its band both the yellow redpolls and the myrtle warblers. These birds are very often seen together in the pine and other evergreen trees in our lawns and in the large city parks.
PRAIRIE WARBLER (Dendroica discolor) Wood Warbler family
Length -- 4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half shorter than the English sparrow. Male -- Olive-green above, shading to yellowish on the head, and with brick-red spots on back between the shoulders. A yellow line over the eye; wing-bars and all under parts bright yellow, heavily streaked with black on the sides. Line through the eye and crescent below it, black. Much white in outer tail feathers. Female -- Paler; upper parts more grayish olive, and markings Less distinct than male's. Range -- Eastern half of the United States. Nests as far north as New England and Michigan. Winters from Florida southward. Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
Doubtless this diminutive bird was given its name because it prefers open country rather than the woods -- the scrubby undergrowth of oaks, young evergreens, and bushes that border clearings being as good a place as any to look for it, and not the wind-swept, treeless tracts of the wild West. Its range is southerly. The Southern and Middle States are where it is most abundant. Here is a wood warbler that is not a bird of the woods -- less so, in fact, than either the summer yellowbird (yellow warbler) or the palm warbler, that are eminently neighborly and fond of pasture lands and roadside thickets. But the prairie warblers are rather more retiring little sprites than their cousins, and it is not often we get a close enough view of them to note the brick-red spots on their backs, which are their distinguishing marks. They have a most unkind preference for briery bushes, that discourage human intimacy. In such forbidding retreats they build their nest of plant-fibre, rootlets, and twigs, lined with plant-down and hair.
The song of an individual prairie warbler makes only a slight impression. It consists "of a series of six or seven quickly repeated tees, the next to the last one being the highest" (Chapman). But the united voices of a dozen or more of these pretty little birds, that often sing together, afford something approaching a musical treat.
WILSON'S WARBLER (Sylvania pusila) Wood Warbler family
Called also: BLACKCAP; GREEN BLACK-CAPPED WARBLER; WILSON'S FLYCATCHER
Length -- 4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half shorter than the English sparrow. Male -- Black cap; yellow forehead; all other upper parts olive-green; rich yellow underneath. Female -- Lacks the black cap. Range -- North America, from Alaska and Nova Scotia to Panama. Winters south of Gulf States. Nests chiefly north of the United States. Migrations -- May. September. Spring and autumn migrant.
To see this strikingly marked little bird one must be on the sharp lookout for it during the latter half of May, or at the season of apple bloom, and the early part of September. It passes northward with an almost scornful rapidity. Audubon mentions having seen it in Maine at the end of October, but this specimen surely must have been an exceptional laggard.
In common with several others of its family, it is exceedingly expert in catching insects on the wing; but it may be known as no true flycatcher from the conspicuous rich yellow of its under parts, and also from its habit of returning from a midair sally to a different perch from the one it left to pursue its dinner. A true flycatcher usually returns to its old perch after each hunt.
To indulge in this aerial chase with success, these warblers select for their home and hunting ground some low woodland growth where a sluggish stream attracts myriads of insects to the boggy neighborhood. Here they build their nest in low bushes or upon the ground. Four or five grayish eggs, sprinkled with cinnamon-colored spots in a circle around the larger end, are laid in the grassy cradle in June. Mr. H. D. Minot found one of these nests on Pike's Peak at an altitude of 11,000 feet, almost at the limit of vegetation. The same authority compares the bird's song to that of the redstart and the yellow warbler.
YELLOW REDPOLL WARBLER (Dendroica palmarum hypochrysea) Wood Warbler family
Called also: YELLOW PALM WARBLER; [the two former palm warbler species combined as PALM WARBLER, AOU 1998]
Length -- 5.5 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English sparrow. Male and Female -- Chestnut crown. Upper parts brownish olive; greenest on lower back. Underneath uniform bright yellow, streaked with chestnut on throat, breast, and sides. Yellow line over and around the eye. Wings unmarked. Tail edged with olive-green; a few white spots near tips of outer quills. More brownish above in autumn, and with a grayish wash over the yellow under parts. Range -- Eastern parts of North America. Nests from Nova Scotia northward. Winters in the Gulf States. Migrations -- April. October. Spring and autumn migrant.
While the uniform yellow of this warbler's under parts in any plumage is its distinguishing mark, it also has a flycatcher's trait of constantly flirting its tail, that is at once an outlet for its superabundant vivacity and a fairly reliable aid to identification. The tail is jerked, wagged, and flirted like a baton in the hands of an inexperienced leader of an orchestra. One need not go to the woods to look for the restless little sprite that comes northward when the early April foliage is as yellow and green as its feathers. It prefers the fields and roadsides, and before there are leaves enough on the undergrowth to conceal it we may come to know it as well as it is possible to know any bird whose home life is passed so far away. Usually it is the first warbler one sees in the spring in New York and New England. With all the alertness of a flycatcher, it will dart into the air after insects that fly near the ground, keeping up a constant chip, chip, fine and shrill, at one end of the small body, and the liveliest sort of tail motions at the other. The pine warbler often bears it company.
With the first suspicion of warm weather, off goes this hardy little fellow that apparently loves the cold almost well enough to stay north all the year like its cousin, the myrtle warbler. It builds a particularly deep nest, of the usual warbler construction, on the ground, but its eggs are rosy rather than the bluish white of others.
In the Southern States the bird becomes particularly neighborly, and is said to enter the streets and gardens of towns with a chippy's familiarity.
Palm Warbler or Redpoll Warbler (Dendroica palmarum) differs from the preceding chiefly in its slightly smaller size, the more grayish-brown tint in its olive upper parts, and the uneven shade of yellow underneath that varies from clear yellow to soiled whitish. It is the Western counterpart of the yellow redpoll, and is most common in the Mississippi Valley. Strangely enough, however, it is this warbler, and not hypochrysea, that goes out of its way to winter in Florida, where it is abundant all winter.
YELLOW WARBLER (Dendroica aestiva) Wood Warbler family
Called also: SUMMER YELLOWBIRD; GOLDEN WARBLER; YELLOW POLL
Length -- 4.75 to 5.2 inches. Over an inch shorter than the English sparrow. Male -- Upper parts olive-yellow, brightest on the crown; under parts bright yellow, streaked with reddish brown. Wings and tail dusky olive-brown, edged with yellow. Female -- Similar; but reddish-brown streakings less distinct. Range -- North America, except Southwestern States, where the prothonotary warbler reigns in its stead. Nests from Gulf States to Fur Countries. Winters south of the Gulf States. As far as northern parts of South America. Migrations -- May. September. Common summer resident.
This exquisite little creature of perpetual summer (though to find it it must travel back and forth between two continents) comes out of the south with the golden days of spring. From much living in the sunshine through countless generations, its feathers have finally become the color of sunshine itself, and in disposition, as well, it is nothing if not sunny and bright. Not the least of its attractions is that it is exceedingly common everywhere: in the shrubbery of our lawns, in gardens and orchards, by the road and brookside, in the edges of woods -- everywhere we catch its glint of brightness through the long summer days, and hear its simple, sweet, and happy song until the end of July.
Because both birds are so conspicuously yellow, no doubt this warbler is quite generally confused with the goldfinch; but their distinctions are clear enough to any but the most superficial glance. In the first place, the yellow warbler is a smaller bird than the goldfinch; it has neither black crown, wings, nor tail, and it does have reddish-brown streaks on its breast that are sufficiently obsolete to make the coloring of that part look simply dull at a little distance. The goldfinch's bill is heavy, in order that it may crack seeds, whereas the yellow warbler's is slender, to enable it to pick minute insects from the foliage. The goldfinch's wavy, curved flight is unique, and that of his "double" differs not a whit from that of all nervous, flitting warblers. Surely no one familiar with the rich, full, canary-like song of the "wild canary," as the goldfinch is called, could confuse it with the mild "Weechee, chee, cher-wee" of the summer yellowbird. Another distinction, not always infallible, but nearly so, is that when seen feeding, the goldfinch is generally below the line of vision, while the yellow warbler is either on it or not far above it, as it rarely goes over twelve feet from the ground.
No doubt, the particularly mild, sweet amiability of the yellow warbler is responsible for the persistent visitations of the cowbird, from which it is a conspicuous sufferer. In the exquisite, neat little matted cradle of glistening milk-weed flax, lined with down from the fronds of fern, the skulking housebreaker deposits her surreptitious egg for the little yellow mother-bird to hatch and tend. But amiability is not the only prominent trait in the female yellow warbler's character. She is clever as well, and quickly builds a new bottom on her nest, thus sealing up the cowbird's egg, and depositing her own on the soft, spongy floor above it. This operation has been known to be twice repeated, until the nest became three stories high, when a persistent cowbird made such unusual architecture necessary.