(_Helminthophila pinus_) Wood Warbler family
_Called also_: BLUE-WINGED YELLOW WARBLER
(Illustration facing p. 17)
_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 larvA| 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."