Called also: CANADIAN FLYCATCHER; SPOTTED CANADIAN WARBLER;
[CANADA WARBLER, AOU 1998]
Length -- 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch shorter than the English
sparrow.
Male -- Immaculate bluish ash above, without marks on wings or
tail; crown spotted with arrow-shaped black marks. Cheeks, line
from bill to eye, and underneath clear yellow. Black streaks
forming a necklace across the breast.
Female -- Paler, with necklace indistinct.
Range -- North America, from Manitoba and Labrador to tropics.
Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident; most abundant in
migrations.
Since about one-third of all the song-birds met with in a year's rambles are
apt to be warblers, the novice cannot devote his first attention to a better
group, confusing though it is by reason of its size and the repetition of the
same colors in so many bewildering combinations. Monotony, however, is unknown
in the warbler family. Whoever can rightly name every warbler, male and
female, on sight is uniquely accomplished.
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.