Bird Neighbors [90]
-- 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
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