Length -- 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch smaller than the English
sparrow.
Male -- Gray head and throat; the breast gray; the feathers with
black edges that make them look crinkled, like crape. The black
markings converge into a spot on upper breast. Upper parts,
except head, olive. Underneath rich yellow.
Female -- Similar, but duller; throat and breast buff and dusky
where the male is black. Back olive-green.
Range -- "Eastern North America; breeds from eastern Nebraska,
northern New York, and Nova Scotia northward, and south ward
along the Alleghanies to Pennsylvania. Winters in the tropics."
-- Chapman.
Migrations -- May. September. Spring and autumn migrant.
Since Audubon met with but one of these birds in his incessant trampings, and
Wilson secured only an immature, imperfectly marked specimen for his
collection, the novice may feel no disappointment if he fails to make the
acquaintance of this "gay and agreeable widow." And yet the shy and wary bird
is not unknown in Central Park, New York City. Even where its clear, whistled
song strikes the ear with a startling novelty that invites to instant pursuit
of the singer, you may look long and diligently through the undergrowth
without finding it. Dr. Merriam says the whistle resembles the syllables
"true, true, true, tru, too, the voice rising on the first three syllables and
falling on the last two." In the nesting season this song is repeated over and
over again with a persistency worthy of a Kentucky warbler. It is delivered
from a perch within a few feet of the ground, as high as the bird seems ever
inclined to ascend.
NASHVILLE WARBLER (Helminthophila ruficapilla) Wood Warbler
family
Length -- 4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half smaller than
the English sparrow.
Male -- Olive-green above; yellow underneath. Slate-gray head and
neck. Partially concealed chestnut patch on crown. Wings and
tail olive-brown and without markings.
Female -- Dull olive and paler, with brownish wash underneath.
Range -- North America, westward to the plains; north to the Fur
Countries, and south to Central America and Mexico. Nests north
of Illinois and northern New England; winters in tropics.
Migrations -- April. September or October.
It must not be thought that this beautiful warbler confines itself to
backyards in the city of Nashville simply because Wilson discovered it near
there and gave it a local name, for the bird's actual range reaches from the
fur trader's camp near Hudson Bay to the adobe villages of Mexico and Central
America, and over two thousand miles east and west in the United States. It
chooses open rather than dense woods and tree-bordered fields. It seems to
have a liking for hemlocks and pine trees, especially if near a stream that
attracts insects to its shores; and Dr. Warren notes that in Pennsylvania he
finds small flocks of these warblers in the autumn migration, feeding in the
willowy trees near little rivers and ponds. Only in the northern parts of the
United States is their nest ever found, for the northern British provinces are
their preferred nesting ground. One seen in the White Mountains was built on a
mossy, rocky edge, directly on the ground at the foot of a pine tree, and made
of rootlets, moss, needles from the trees overhead, and several layers of
leaves outside, with a lining of fine grasses that cradled four white,
speckled eggs.
Audubon likened the bird's feeble note to the breaking of twigs.