Length: About 5½ inches.
Male: Body glossy black, with a white belly, orange patches at the sides of the body and under the wings; an orange band across the wings; middle tail-feathers black; other tail-feathers broadly tipped with black but largely orange, conspicuous in flight; bill with bristles.
Female: Gray and olive-green above, white underneath; yellow instead of orange on sides, wings, tail, and under tail.
Young Male: Like female till end of first breeding season.
Nest: A beautiful structure made of strips of bark, root-fibers, and plant-down, and placed in the fork of a tree. If built in a birch sapling and decorated with bits of birch bark, it seems a part of the tree.
Song: A cheerful trill, rather weak and unmusical.
Range: North America. Breeds from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and North Carolina northward; winters in the West Indies, central Mexico, and northern South America.
The Redstart is one of the most beautiful and conspicuous of the warblers. Its fan-shaped, flame-colored tail tipped with black is its most distinctive mark. It is in almost constant motion, fluttering incessantly in pursuit of its insect prey. Mr. Forbush writes, “In all its movements its wings are held in readiness for instant flight, and in its sinuous twistings and turnings, risings and fallings, its colors expand, contract, and glow amid the sylvan shades like a dancing torch.”[145]
Like flycatchers, the redstart has bristles at the base of its bill, which makes the capture of a great variety of insects an easy matter. It has been named the “flycatcher of the inner treetops, but it is a flycatcher of the bushtops as well.”[146]
2. THE BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER
Length: A little over 5 inches.
Male: Black crown, with bright orange patch in the center; irregular black patch extending from eye, bordered with orange; throat and breast orange, becoming yellowish on belly; back black, streaked with white; sides streaked with black; wings black, with white edges and a large white patch; tail black, most of the feathers nearly all white on inner web. Colors duller in the fall.
Female: Upper parts grayish-olive, streaked with white; orange parts paler, less white on wings and tail.
Song: A “thin” warbler-like trill.
Habitat: Treetops of coniferous forests preferably.
Range: Breeds from central Canada to northern United States, and in the Alleghany Mts. from Pennsylvania to Georgia; winters in Colombia and Peru.
This brilliant warbler flashes flame as do the oriole and the redstart, and like them, always brings a thrill of pleasure. It remains with us so short a time that its appearance is an event.
Mr. Forbush tells of going out at daybreak May 11, 1900, at Amesbury, Mass., to observe the migrant warblers. He says: “As we walked through the streets of the village, many male Blackburnian Warblers were seen among the street trees. A little later we saw them in the orchards, their brilliant orange breasts flashing in the sunlight. As we approached the woods it was everywhere the same. The night had been very cold, and other insect-eating birds were seeking benumbed insects on or near the ground. There were four bright Redstarts flitting about on the upturned sod of a newly plowed garden. These and other species of Warblers were to be seen in every orchard, wood, and thicket. The Blackburnian Warblers had come in during the night, and were busy hunting for their breakfasts until 7 o’clock, when we went to ours. At 8 o’clock not a single Blackburnian was to be seen. I scoured the country till nearly noon, finding all the other Warblers as at daybreak, but not a Blackburnian could be found. They had done their share of the good work and passed on. A later riser would have missed them.”[147]
Eaton says: “The Blackburnian warbler during the migration season associates with the Magnolia, Bay-breasted, and Chestnut-sided warblers among the blossoming fruit trees and the leaving shrubbery and shade trees of our lawns and parks. During the nesting season, however, it is almost entirely confined to mixed and evergreen forests, being especially fond of hemlocks and spruces.... The old name of Hemlock warbler is perfectly appropriate. The Blackburnian flutters about while feeding almost as conspicuously as the Redstart and Magnolia, displaying its brilliant colors and pied pattern very effectively.”[148]