Called also: BLACKCAP; GREEN BLACK-CAPPED WARBLER; WILSON'S
FLYCATCHER
Length -- 4.75 to 5 inches. About an inch and a half shorter than
the English sparrow.
Male -- Black cap; yellow forehead; all other upper parts
olive-green; rich yellow underneath.
Female -- Lacks the black cap.
Range -- North America, from Alaska and Nova Scotia to Panama.
Winters south of Gulf States. Nests chiefly north of the United
States.
Migrations -- May. September. Spring and autumn migrant.
To see this strikingly marked little bird one must be on the sharp lookout for
it during the latter half of May, or at the season of apple bloom, and the
early part of September. It passes northward with an almost scornful rapidity.
Audubon mentions having seen it in Maine at the end of October, but this
specimen surely must have been an exceptional laggard.
In common with several others of its family, it is exceedingly expert in
catching insects on the wing; but it may be known as no true flycatcher from
the conspicuous rich yellow of its under parts, and also from its habit of
returning from a midair sally to a different perch from the one it left to
pursue its dinner. A true flycatcher usually returns to its old perch after
each hunt.
To indulge in this aerial chase with success, these warblers select for their
home and hunting ground some low woodland growth where a sluggish stream
attracts myriads of insects to the boggy neighborhood. Here they build their
nest in low bushes or upon the ground. Four or five grayish eggs, sprinkled
with cinnamon-colored spots in a circle around the larger end, are laid in the
grassy cradle in June. Mr. H. D. Minot found one of these nests on Pike's Peak
at an altitude of 11,000 feet, almost at the limit of vegetation. The same
authority compares the bird's song to that of the redstart and the yellow
warbler.
YELLOW REDPOLL WARBLER (Dendroica palmarum hypochrysea) Wood
Warbler family
Called also: YELLOW PALM WARBLER; [the two former palm warbler
species combined as PALM WARBLER, AOU 1998]
Length -- 5.5 to 5.75 inches. A little smaller than the English
sparrow.
Male and Female -- Chestnut crown. Upper parts brownish olive;
greenest on lower back. Underneath uniform bright yellow,
streaked with chestnut on throat, breast, and sides. Yellow
line over and around the eye. Wings unmarked. Tail edged with
olive-green; a few white spots near tips of outer quills. More
brownish above in autumn, and with a grayish wash over the
yellow under parts.
Range -- Eastern parts of North America. Nests from Nova Scotia
northward. Winters in the Gulf States.
Migrations -- April. October. Spring and autumn migrant.
While the uniform yellow of this warbler's under parts in any plumage is its
distinguishing mark, it also has a flycatcher's trait of constantly flirting
its tail, that is at once an outlet for its superabundant vivacity and a
fairly reliable aid to identification. The tail is jerked, wagged, and flirted
like a baton in the hands of an inexperienced leader of an orchestra. One need
not go to the woods to look for the restless little sprite that comes
northward when the early April foliage is as yellow and green as its feathers.
It prefers the fields and roadsides, and before there are leaves enough on the
undergrowth to conceal it we may come to know it as well as it is possible to
know any bird whose home life is passed so far away. Usually it is the first
warbler one sees in the spring in New York and New England. With all the
alertness of a flycatcher, it will dart into the air after insects that fly
near the ground, keeping up a constant chip, chip, fine and shrill, at one end
of the small body, and the liveliest sort of tail motions at the other. The
pine warbler often bears it company.
With the first suspicion of warm weather, off goes this hardy little fellow
that apparently loves the cold almost well enough to stay north all the year
like its cousin, the myrtle warbler. It builds a particularly deep nest, of
the usual warbler construction, on the ground, but its eggs are rosy rather
than the bluish white of others.
In the Southern States the bird becomes particularly neighborly, and is said
to enter the streets and gardens of towns with a chippy's familiarity.
Palm Warbler or Redpoll Warbler (Dendroica palmarum) differs from the
preceding chiefly in its slightly smaller size, the more grayish-brown tint in
its olive upper parts, and the uneven shade of yellow underneath that varies
from clear yellow to soiled whitish. It is the Western counterpart of the
yellow redpoll, and is most common in the Mississippi Valley. Strangely
enough, however, it is this warbler, and not hypochrysea, that goes out of its
way to winter in Florida, where it is abundant all winter.