The following statements regarding the Chat are taken from Eaton’s “Birds of New York”:
“The Chat is not a bird of the dense woodland or of open situations, but is confined to thick coverts of shrubs, vines, and young saplings, preferring a denser covert than even the Chestnut-sided warbler and the Catbird. It is rarely seen far from such situations....
“Though the Chat is so averse to being seen, he will sometimes be found even within the limits of our villages and cities where suitable thickets of considerable extent are found and his loud song is frequently heard from village streets and sidewalks.”
9. THE YELLOW PALM WARBLER
Length: About 5½ inches.
Male and Female: Crown chestnut; line over the eye and ring around the eye yellow; upper parts olive-green, browner on the back; under parts bright yellow, with streaks of brown on throat, breast, and sides; wings sometimes edged with brown; tail edged with olive-green; outer tail-feathers with white spots on inner webs near tips.
Song: Two songs, one “thinner” and more rapid than the other.
Habitat: Fields and roadsides; feeds chiefly on the ground and among low bushes.
Range: Atlantic Slope of North America. Breeds in southeastern Canada and Maine; winters from Louisiana to northern Florida; casually to North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The PALM WARBLER is the western species, an inhabitant of the Mississippi Valley and the region eastward. It is very common in Florida, where it may be discovered in company with yellow Palm Warblers.
This lively little warbler, with its nervous habit of tipping up its tail incessantly like a spotted sandpiper, resembles its near relative the yellow warbler in a few respects. The olive-green upper parts and yellow breast streaked with brown are points of resemblances, but the chestnut crown and yellow line over the eye are differences. Neither yellow warblers nor yellow palm warblers are dwellers in the woods, but prefer to live near the haunts of man. Yellow warblers are seen in trees and bushes, while the palm warblers are found by roadsides, often on the ground in the stubble of pastures, out in the open. While subdued in color and therefore inconspicuous, they are readily identified by the habit of moving their tails.
GROUP SIX—BLUE OR BLUE AND YELLOW WARBLERS
1. THE CERULEAN WARBLER
Length: About 4½ inches; one of the smaller warblers.
Male: Upper parts bright blue; head and back streaked with black; light streak above eye; white throat, breast, and belly, with a bluish-black line that extends across the breast and down each side; wings with two broad white bars; inner webs of all except the middle tail-feathers with small white patches near tips.
Female: Bluish-olive above, under parts pale yellow; light streak over eye; wings with white bars; tail-feathers with white tips.
Song: Mr. Stone describes the song of the Cerulean warbler as “an almost continuous ‘zwee-zwee, zwee, wee-ee’ during the nesting season.”[152]
Habitat: “They are numerous in the maple woods on the hillsides overlooking the swamp, as well as in the swamp itself,” writes Mr. Stone.[152]
Range: Eastern North America. Breeds mainly from southeastern Nebraska, Minnesota, southern Michigan and Ontario, western New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, south to Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama.