MAGNOLIA WARBLER
Plates 26-28
HABITS
Wilson secured only two specimens of this pretty warbler, one of which was shot among some magnolia trees near Fort Adams, Miss. He gave it the scientific name Sylvia magnolia but called it the black and yellow warbler. This stood for many years as the common name. Nuttall, who had seen it only occasionally in Massachusetts, regarded it as rare. Audubon, on the other hand, found it quite common and even abundant in several places, as we now know it to be. His lively plate of this beautiful bird, one of his best, has always been a favorite of mine; and it seems to me that in the magnolia warbler, more than in any one of the many beautiful species of American wood warblers, are best combined daintiness of attire with pleasing combinations and contrasts of often brilliant colors. Particularly are these qualities apparent when this warbler is seen amongst the dark green firs and spruces of its summer home, where its brilliant array of colors are displayed to advantage as it flits about, sometimes within a few feet of us.
Spring.—From their winter quarters in Mexico and Central America, some magnolia warblers migrate straight across the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf coast between Louisiana and western Florida; they seem to be accidental in Cuba and very rare anywhere in Florida. Another migration, probably of some importance, occurs along the coast of Texas from the mouth of the Rio Grande to Louisiana; I saw a few magnolia warblers in the great migration wave noted on an island in Galveston Bay on May 4, 1923. Professor Cooke (1904) remarks: “The dates of arrival of the magnolia warbler in spring furnish the best evidence yet available in support of the theory that birds migrating across the Gulf of Mexico do not always alight as soon as they reach the shore. The species is a common spring migrant from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic, between latitudes 37° and 39°. South of this district it becomes less and less common, except in the mountains, until in the Gulf States it is rare.” It is significant that the earliest date of arrival at Atlanta, Ga., is the same as at the lower Rio Grande in Texas, April 20.
William Brewster (1877) writes:
The Black-and-Yellow Warbler arrives in Massachusetts from the South about the 15th of May. During the next two or three weeks they are abundant everywhere in congenial localities. Willow thickets near streams, ponds, and other damp places, suit them best, but it is also not unusual to find many in the upland woods, especially where young pines or other evergreens grow thickly. Their food at this season is exclusively insects, the larger part consisting of the numerous species of Diptera. The males sing freely, especially on warm bright mornings. They associate indifferently with all the migrating warblers, but not unfrequently I have found large flocks composed entirely of members of their own species, and in this way have seen at least fifty individuals collected in one small tract of woodland. By the first of June all excepting a few stragglers have left.
On its migration as well as on its breeding grounds the magnolia warbler seems to avoid the taller tree-tops and to prefer the lower levels in the forests and in the thickets along the borders of woodlands; it is sometimes seen in garden shrubbery and in orchards, where it adds a brilliant touch of color to the blossoming fruit trees. When it reaches its breeding haunts it prefers low hemlock thickets, or more especially, where these can be found, the dense thickets of small spruces or balsam firs that spring up thickly in old clearings, or grow profusely along the more open woodland paths; the density of the forest depths seems to be avoided in favor of the more open spaces.