Length: About 5 inches.
Male: A black crown and white cheeks, giving the effect of a black cap
pulled down over the eyes; throat and belly white; back and sides
gray, streaked with black; two white wing-bars; two outer
tail-feathers with white spot near tip.
Female: Olive-green above, streaked with black; breast and sides with
yellowish wash.
Range: Widely distributed; common in the East during migration. Breeds
in the forests of Alaska and north-central Canada, in Michigan,
northern Maine, and the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont.
Black-poll Warblers are similar in coloring to the black-and-white
warblers, but are duller and less striking in appearance. In the
breeding season, father, mother, and young differ in plumage, though a
practiced eye may see resemblances, but in the fall they don coats so
similar that they seem to have adopted a family costume.
The migration of black-poll warblers is interesting. Dr. Wells W. Cooke
says: "All black-poll warblers winter in South America. Those that are
to nest in Alaska strike straight across the Caribbean Sea to Florida
and go northwestward to the Mississippi River. Then the direction
changes and a course is laid almost due north to northern Minnesota, in
order to avoid the treeless plains of North Dakota. But when the forests
of the Saskatchewan are reached, the northwestern course is resumed,
and, with a slight verging toward the west, is held until the nesting
site in Alaska spruces is attained."[141]