Length -- 6.50 inches. A trifle larger than the English sparrow.
Male -- Dusky brownish olive above, darkest on head; paler on
throat, lighter still underneath, and with a yellowish tinge on
the dusky gray under parts. Dusky wings and tail, the wing
coverts tipped with soiled white, forming two indistinct bars.
Whitish eye-ring. Wings longer than tail.
Female -- Similar, but slightly more buff underneath.
Range -- Eastern North America, from Florida to northern British
provinces. Winters in Central America.
Migrations -- May. October. Common summer resident
The wood pewee, like the olive-sided flycatcher, has wings decidedly longer
than its tail, and it is by no means a simple matter for the novice to tell
these birds apart or separate them distinctly in the mind from the other
members of a family whose coloring and habits are most confusingly similar.
This dusky haunter of tall shady trees has not yet learned to be sociable like
the phoebe; but while it may not be so much in evidence close to our homes, it
is doubtless just as common. The orchard is as near the house as it often
cares to come. An old orchard, where modern insecticides are unknown and
neglect allows insects to riot among the decayed bark and fallen fruit, is a
happy hunting ground enough; but the bird's real preferences are decidedly for
high tree-tops in the woods, where no sunshine touches the feathers on his
dusky coat. It is one of the few shade-loving birds. In deep solitudes, where
it surely retreats by nesting time, however neighborly it may be during the
migrations, its pensive, pathetic notes, long drawn out, seem like the
expression of some hidden sorrow. Pe-a-wee, pe-a-wee, pewee-ah-peer is the
burden of its plaintive song, a sound as depressing as it is familiar in every
walk through the woods, and the bird's most prominent characteristic.
To see the bird dashing about in his aerial chase for insects, no one would
accuse him of melancholia. He keeps an eye on the "main chance," whatever his
preying grief may be, and never allows it to affect his appetite. Returning to
his perch after a successful sally in pursuit of the passing fly, he repeats
his "sweetly solemn thought" over and over again all day long and every day
throughout the summer.
The wood pewees show that devotion to each other and to their home,
characteristic of their family. Both lovers work on the construction of the
flat nest that is saddled on some mossy or lichen-covered limb, and so
cleverly do they cover the rounded edge with bits of bark and lichen that
sharp eyes only can detect where the cradle lies. Creamy-white eggs, whose
larger end is wreathed with brown and lilac spots, are guarded with fierce
solicitude.
Trowbridge has celebrated this bird in a beautiful poem.