3. THE WORM-EATING WARBLER
Length: About 5½ inches.
Male and Female: Back, wings, and tail olive-green, without white markings; head with two narrow and two broad black stripes, alternating with three cream-colored stripes; under parts cream-colored, lighter on throat and belly.
Song: A weak trill.
Habitat: “The Worm-eating warbler seems to prefer dense undergrowth in swampy thickets and wet places, ... wooded hillsides and ravines, and dense undergrowths of woodland.... The nesting site is on the ground.”[140]
Range: Eastern North America from southern Iowa, northern Illinois, western Pennsylvania, and the lower Hudson and Connecticut valleys, south to Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, and the mountains of South Carolina.
GROUP TWO—THE BLACK AND WHITE WARBLERS
1. THE BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER
Length: About 5¼ inches.
Male: Black, streaked with white—no yellow; head with broad black and white stripes; body with narrow stripes; white stripe over eye, black patch back of eye; striped throat and sides, white belly; tail grayish black; outer tail-feathers with white patches on inner web; wings black, with two distinct white bars.
Female: Similar, but with gray cheeks and whiter under parts, fainter streaks, and brownish sides.
Song: A thin, unmusical se-se′-se-se′-se-se′-se-se′.
This Black-and-White Warbler is as easy to identify as a zebra, because of its conspicuous black and white stripes. As it is found on tree-trunks, it is sometimes confused with the brown creeper. Its bill, however, is not curved like the creeper’s, nor is its tail used as a prop. It resembles the nuthatch in its ability to descend as well as ascend tree-trunks.
These warblers, though they obtain their food from trees, nest on the ground in nests not unlike those of the oven-bird.