So it is with each one of us. Some day a bird absolutely new and unknown flies through the orchard or sings above the familiar footpath through the woods, which, though it is meant to be a " short eut" to somewhere, is often rendered a loitering-ground by the mage of these very bird voices that speak so directly to us.
A special gift of sight is needed to search out these tree. flitting Warblers, but in this case the nest of the Parula will tell you of its whereabouts if you are so lucky as to find it. No other bird of our fauna builds a structure akin to its swinging, eery, moss nest, and the day you find it must be noted with red ink in your journal. (See Building of the Nest, p. 20.
Yellow Warbler: Dendroica cestiva. Summer Yellowbird. PLATE 10. Fig. 1
Length: 4.75-5 inches.
- Male and Female:
- Above rich olive-yellow, brightening on the rump; breast and under parts golden-yellow. Breast streaked with cinnamon-brown. Wings and tail olive-brown edged with yel. low. Bill lead-coloured; feet light brown. Female darker with streaks on breast faintly marked or absent.
Song: Rapid warble, " Sweet-sweet-sweet-sweet-sweet-sweeter-sweeter?" Seven times repeated.
- Season:
- First week in May to middle September.
- Breeds:
- In all parts of its North American range.
- Nest:
- In the crötch of some terminal branch of a fruit tree, or stout shrub, made of the frayings of milkweed stalks lined with fern wool and hair.
Eggs:
- 4-5, greenish or grayish white, spotted and blotched with lilac tints and red-browns.
- Range:
- North America at large, except southwestern part, south in winter to Central America and northern South America.
In early May, often on May-day itself, if the weather is clement, when the marsh-marigolds are vanishing from the swamps, and the cherry trees are in bloom, the Yellow Warblers descend upon the gardens and orchards.
They come like whirling leaves, half autumn yellow, half
