Length -- 4.75 inches. An inch and a half shorter than the
English sparrow.
Male -- Crown of head and all under parts bright yellow. Back
olive-green. Wings and tail bluish slate, the former with white
bars, and three outer tail quills with large white patches on
their inner webs.
Female -- Paler and more olive.
Range -- Eastern United States, from southern New England and
Minnesota, the northern limit of its nesting range, to Mexico
And Central America, where it winters.
Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
In the naming of warblers, bluish slate is the shade intended when blue is
mentioned; so that if you see a dainty little olive and yellow bird with
slate-colored wings and tail hunting for spiders in the blossoming orchard or
during the early autumn you will have seen the beautiful blue-winged warbler.
It has a rather leisurely way of hunting, unlike the nervous, restless
flitting about from twig to twig that is characteristic of many of its many
cousins. The search is thorough -- bark, stems, blossoms, leaves are inspected
for larvae and spiders, with many pretty motions of head and body. Sometimes,
hanging with head downward, the bird suggests a yellow titmouse. After blossom
time a pair of these warblers, that have done serviceable work in the orchard
in their all too brief stay, hurry off to dense woods to nest. They are
usually to be seen in pairs at all seasons. Not to "high coniferous trees in
northern forests," -- the Mecca of innumerable warblers -- but to scrubby,
second growth of woodland borders, or lower trees in the heart of the woods,
do these dainty birds retreat. There they build the usual warbler nest of
twigs, bits of bark, leaves, and grasses, but with this peculiarity: the
numerous leaves with which the nest is wrapped all have their stems pointing
upward. Mr. Frank Chapman has admirably defined their song as consisting of
"two drawled, wheezy notes -- swee-chee, the first inhaled, the second
exhaled."