(_Setophaga ruticilla._)
Contemporaneous with the blossoming out of the wild plum, the early
Richmond cherry and a rich and diversified profusion of woodland
flowers, perhaps better exemplified on this occasion by such
interesting types as the little Claytonia, or spring-beauty, the
rue-anemone and the trilliums, both T. erectum and grandiflorum, with
perhaps a few belated blossoms of the hepatica, is the advent of this
interesting little bird among us, which here in Northeastern Illinois
usually plans its arrival somewhere near the closing days of the first
week in May.
Its generic name, Setophaga, interpreted into plainer English, means a
devourer of insects, and, were we to select from among the large and
varied assortment of birds comprising the bulk of our warbler hosts
a form most elegant and expressive of gayety, sprightliness, and, in
a measure, frivolity, we could not go far wrong in determining upon
this species so easily outclassing all others as the most brilliantly
colored member of that numerously large and interesting family, the
Mniotiltidae.
At first a creeper and sharp-eyed inspector of hidden crannies, we
afterwards discern no less in him, and upon the slightest provocation,
a tyrant on the wing, thereby proving a general adaptability to and
utility in his calling at all stages of the game--a constant warfare
directed against the insect horde to which he devotes himself most
assiduously at all times, and it is really astonishing the amount of
the minute forms of insect life these little birds will consume. So
then, what at first may appear to us as clever acts of trifling weight
will, upon closer inspection, prove carefully executed movements
planned and carried out with the greatest precision.
Among ornithologists we find it classed as an interesting member of
the group of fly-catching warblers. Equally suggestive to the mind of
the writer would be the name of the fan-tailed warbler, derived from
its well-known habit of carrying the tail slightly elevated and partly
spread.
To those who may be on the lookout for just such marked characteristics
among our birds this one feature alone will serve as an excellent index
in determining its proper identification.
The plainer and grayer markings of the female and immature birds may
differ very considerably from the more pronounced black and white,
orange-red and salmon-colored blotches of the adult male, but never so
strikingly manifesting themselves in the markings of the tail which in
either case may appear to the casual observer as quite similar.
Yet if we examine them more critically we will discover that they are
distinctly different, the salmon-red and black-tipped feathers of the
male bird being replaced by a paler reddish-yellow and grayer-tipped
arrangement in the case of the female. Young males have the darker
markings of the tail feathers very similar to those of the adult birds,
which we are told do not take on the complete dress until the third
year. But the habit of constantly flitting the tail in fan-like motions
is peculiar alike to all phases of this bird's plumage and above all
other characters serves as the greatest aid in naming it.
The very young, or nestling dress, of which little or nothing seems to
have been written, bears a partial resemblance to that of the female
bird, excepting that the wings are crossed by two yellowish bands,
caused by the lighter tippings of the outer coverts. The yellow
breast spots of the female are also wanting in this dress.
For further particulars the reader is kindly referred to the colored
plate accompanying this article.
Like the robin red-breasts, the name of the Redstart seems to have been
brought to America by the earlier settlers who were ever on the watch
for familiar objects to remind them of former days, and, as in the
case of the example just cited, wrongfully ascribed by them to a far
different bird. An analogy, however, exists in the coloration of the
European and American birds justifying in a measure the reason for so
naming it.
We are told, in Newton's Dictionary of Birds, that the Redstart, the
Ruticilla phoenicurus of most ornithologists, is well known in Great
Britain, where it is also called the Fire-tail, from the word "start"
which in the original Anglo-Saxon "steort," means tail. But the English
bird is very different from ours throughout, a marked distinction being
its peculiarity of habit in seeking out for a nesting site a hole in a
tree or ruined building.
Our bird, contrary to all this, more correctly builds its nest out of
doors, usually selecting the upright forks of some tall shrub or small
tree and placing therein a neat, compact structure, in which four or
five light-colored eggs are deposited that in their spotted appearance
and blotching of various shades of brown resemble very closely the eggs
of the common yellow warbler (Dendroica aestiva).
But for all this, however, it repairs to the shadier depths of the
woods while the yellow warbler on the other hand seeks out the more
tangled thickets and willow copses.
The song of the Redstart, too, bears in a striking degree a very close
resemblance to that of this same yellow warbler, though, as in the case
of the nest, the localities frequented by it serve readily in making a
distinction. "In general tone and quality," as Prof. Lynds Jones has
remarked in No. 30 of the Wilson Bulletin, "Warbler Songs," "there is a
strong resemblance to the Yellow, but the range of variation is greater
and the song distinctly belongs to the 'ringing aisles' of the woods."
"The common utterance can be recalled by che, che, che, che--pa, the
last syllable abruptly falling and weakening." "A soft song is like
wee-see, wee-see-wee, with a suggestion at least of a lower pitch for
the last syllable."
The range of the American Redstart is quite extended, including, as we
may say, all of North America, though it is very rare and irregular
in the States west of the Sierras. It is said to breed from Kansas
northward.
Tabulated observations compiled by the writer at Glen Ellyn, Illinois,
during the past seven years, show that the southward movement of the
Redstart commences about the end of the first week in August; the
first part of September finds them common, after which their numbers
gradually wane, the last of the month, or the first few days in
October, witnessing its final departure.
Benjamin True Gault.