This beautiful little sky-blue feathered creature is well named Azure
Warbler, or again White-throated Blue Warbler, and is the most abundant
of the genus here.
It is a bird of the wood, everywhere associated with the beautiful tall
forests of the more northern counties of western New York, sometimes
found in the open woods of pasture-lands, and quite partial to hardwood
trees. In its flitting motion in search of insect-prey, and in the
jerking curves of its more prolonged flight, as also in its structure,
it is a genuine Wood Warbler and keeps for the most part to what Thoreau
calls the "upper story" of its sylvan domain.
All Warblers, it has been said, depend upon their markings rather than
song for their identity, which renders the majority of the tribe of
greater interest to the scientist than to the novice. Until you have
named four or five of the commonest species as landmarks, you will be
considerably confused.
Audubon described the song of the Cerulean Warbler as "extremely sweet
and mellow," whereas it is a modest little strain, says Chapman, or
trill, divided into syllables like _zee, zee, zee, ze-ee-ee-eep_, or
according to another observer, _rheet, rheet, rheet, rheet, ridi, idi,
e-e-e-e-ee_; beginning with several soft warbling notes and ending in a
rather prolonged but quite musical squeak. The latter and more rapid
part of the strain, which is given in the upward slide, approaches an
insect quality of tone which is more or less peculiar to all true
Warblers, a song so common as to be a universal characteristic of our
tall forests.
It is not strange that the nest of this species has been so seldom
discovered, even where the bird is very abundant during the breeding
season. It is built in the higher horizontal branches of forest trees,
always out some distance from the trunk, and ranging from twenty to
fifty feet above the ground. One described by Dr. Brewer, found in
Ontario, near Niagara Falls, was built in a large oak tree at the height
of fifty or more feet from the ground. It was placed horizontally on the
upper surface of a slender limb between two small twigs; and the branch
on which it was thus saddled was only an inch and a half in thickness,
being nine feet from the trunk of the tree. The abandoned home was
secured with great difficulty.
The nest is a rather slender fabric, somewhat similar to the nest of the
Redstart, and quite small for the bird, consisting chiefly of a strong
rim firmly woven of strips of fine bark, stems of grasses, and pine
needles, bound round with flaxen fibres of plants and wool. Around the
base a few bits of hornets' nests, mosses, and lichens are loosely
fastened. The nest within is furnished with fine stems and needles, the
flooring very thin and slight.
The bird is shy when started from the nest, and has a sharp chipping
alarm-note common to the family.
The Cerulean Warbler is found in the Eastern States, but is more
numerous west of the Allegheny mountains, and throughout the heavily
wooded districts of the Mississippi valley. In winter it migrates to
Central America and Cuba. The Warblers are of unfailing interest to the
lover of bird life. Apart from the beauty of the birds themselves, with
their perpetually contrasting colors among the green leaves, their
pretty ways furnish to the silent watcher an ever changing spectacle of
the innocent life in the tree-tops.
[Illustration: From col. Fred. Kaempfer.
WILD TURKEY.
Copyrighted by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]
[Illustration: From col. F. M. Woodruff.
CERULEAN WARBLER.
Copyrighted by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1897, Chicago.]