Length -- 4.5 to 5.5 inches. An inch and a half smaller than the
English sparrow.
Male -- Head black, striped with orange-flame; throat and breast
orange, shading through yellow to white underneath; wings,
tail, and part of back black, with white markings.
Female -- Olive-brown above, shading into yellow on breast, and
paler under parts.
Range -- Eastern North America to plains. Winters in tropics.
Migrations -- May. September. Spring and autumn migrant.
"The orange-throated warbler would seem to be his right name, his
characteristic cognomen," says John Burroughs, in ever-delightful "Wake
Robin"; "but no, he is doomed to wear the name of some discoverer, perhaps the
first who robbed his nest or rifled him of his mate -- Blackburn; hence,
Blackburnian warbler. The burn seems appropriate enough, for in these dark
evergreens his throat and breast show like flame. He has a very fine warble,
suggesting that of the redstart, but not especially musical."
No foliage is dense enough to hide, and no autumnal tint too brilliant to
outshine this luminous little bird that in May, as it migrates northward to
its nesting ground, darts in and out of the leafy shadows like a tongue of
fire.
It is by far the most glorious of all the warblers -- a sort of diminutive
oriole. The quiet-colored little mate flits about after him, apparently lost
in admiration of his fine feathers and the ease with which his thin tenor
voice can end his lover's warble in a high Z.
Take a good look at this attractive couple, for in May they leave us to build
a nest of bark and moss in the evergreens of Canada -- that paradise for
warblers -- or of the Catskills and Adirondacks, and in autumn they hurry
south to escape the first frosts.