PARULA AMERICANA AMERICANA (Linnaeus)
SOUTHERN PARULA WARBLER
Plate [22]
HABITS
This southern race of our well-known blue yellow-backed warbler is said to breed from the District of Columbia southward to Florida and Alabama. William Brewster (1896), in describing and naming the northern race, restricted the Linnaean name americana to the southern bird because it was evidently based on Catesby’s excellent plate, drawn from a bird taken in South Carolina. In his comparative diagnoses of the two forms, he describes the southern bird as "averaging slightly smaller but with longer bill. Adult male with more yellow on the under parts and less black or blackish on the lores and malar region; the dark collar across the jugulum narrow, obscure, often nearly wanting; the chest pale, diffuse russet, without obvious markings.” He admits that no one of these characters is quite constant, the best one being the depth and definition of the reddish brown on the chest. And he suggests that the distribution of the two forms in the breeding season may be roughly correlated with the distribution of Usnea in the north and of Tillandsia in the south, in which the two forms, respectively, seem to prefer to build their nests. This, however, is not strictly accurate or universal (for example, see some remarks by M. G. Vaiden, under the preceding form, on the breeding of this species in two different localities in Mississippi).
Arthur T. Wayne (1910) says of the haunts of the southern bird in South Carolina: “As soon as the sweet gum trees begin to bud, the song of this beautiful bird is heard. It heralds the approach of spring and is one of the first warblers to arrive which does not winter. The range of this species in the breeding season is entirely governed by the presence or absence of the Spanish moss, and where the moss is growing in profusion the birds are common, but where the moss is absent the birds are absolutely not to be found.”
A. H. Howell (1932) calls this southern subspecies “an abundant spring and fall migrant [in Florida]; a common summer resident south at least to Osceola County; and a rare winter resident, chiefly in the central and southern part. Owing to the presence of a few wintering individuals, it is difficult to determine when spring migration begins. * * * Positive evidence of migration is furnished by the appearance of large numbers striking the light on Sombrero Key, March 3, 1889, when 250 birds were observed and 30 were killed. This species is one of the most numerous and regular visitants at the lighthouses on the east coast and on the Keys.” Many of these were, of course, the northern race. Of the haunts of the southern race, he says: “The dainty little Parula Warbler is found most frequently in cypress swamps or heavily timbered bottom-lands, and to a lesser extent in the upland hammocks. The abundant Spanish moss on the trees furnishes ideal nesting sites for the birds.”
Nesting.—Except for the fact that the so-called Spanish moss (Tillandsia) replaces the beard moss (Usnea), the nesting habits of the two races are very much alike. A. T. Wayne (1910) says that in South Carolina “the nest is always built in the festoons of the Spanish moss, from eight to more than one hundred feet from the ground, and is constructed of the flower of the moss and a few pieces of fine, dry grass.” The nesting habits in Florida are very similar.