HABITS
The Alaska myrtle warbler is another subspecies that was described many years ago but only recently admitted to the A. O. U. Check-List. Richard C. McGregor (1899) described this warbler, from specimens collected in California, as a western race and named it for his friend Theodore J. Hoover, who collected the type and placed his material at his disposal. He called it Dendroica coronata hooveri, Hoover’s warbler. In his description of it he says that it is “in colors and markings like Dendroica coronata, but with wing and tail much longer.” His table of measurements shows that the wings of California males average .15 inch longer than those of eastern birds, and the tails .14 inch longer, less than 1⁄6 inch! Among the wing measurements of eastern males the individual variation is as great as the difference in his averages, the shortest measuring 2.80 and the longest 2.95 inches! It appears to be a quite finely drawn subspecies.
Dr. Oberholser (1938) says of it: “The Myrtle Warblers breeding in Alaska are recognizable as a western race of this species. They differ from the eastern bird in larger size and more solidly black breast in the male. The upper parts in winter plumage and in the young are also less rufescent than in the eastern bird.”
The breeding range of this race, so far as known, extends from northwestern Mackenzie to western Alaska, and southward to central British Columbia and central Alberta. It has been found in winter from California to southeastern Louisiana, in the southeastern United States, and in northern Baja California and in southern Veracruz, in Mexico. It may be commoner than is supposed, as it is recognizable only with specimens in hand.
Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1900) writes of its habits in northern Alaska:
Hoover’s Warblers were numerous summer residents of the timber tracts throughout the Kowak Valley from the delta eastward. In the latter part of August scattering companies were frequenting the spruce, birch and cottonwoods, among the foliage of which they were constantly searching, with oft-repeated ‘chits,’ just as are their habits in winter in California. The last observed, a straggling flock of six or eight, were seen in a patch of tall willows about sunset of August 30th. The following spring the arrival of Hoover’s Warblers was on May 22nd. They were already in pairs and the males were in full song. At this season they were confined exclusively to the heavier spruce woods. In the Kowak delta, on the 23rd of June, a set of five considerably-incubated eggs was secured. The nest was in a small spruce in a tract of larger growth, and only four feet above the ground. It is a rather loose structure of fine dry grass-blades, lined with ptarmigan feathers.
In the Atlin region of northern British Columbia, according to Mr. Swarth (1926), it is a common species, breeding mostly in the lowlands:
A nest with five fresh eggs (Mus. Vert. Zool. no. 1992) was taken by Brooks on June 15. It was in a slender spruce, one of a small thicket in a locality that is largely poplar grown, about forty feet from the ground and near the top of the tree. It rested on the twigs forming the terminal forks of a branch, about three feet from the trunk. The outer walls of the nest were built mostly of the shredded bark of the fire-weed stalks, with a little fire-weed ‘cotton,’ some coarse grass and small twigs, and several wing and tail feathers of a small bird. In the lining there was some horse hair, mountain sheep hair and a few soft feathers.
Another nest, containing newly hatched young on June 28, was in a small jack pine in open woods on the shore of Lake Atlin.
During the last week in August and the first week in September the southward exodus was at its height. Flocks of warblers, mostly this species, flitted rapidly through the poplar woods, and there was a constant stream of myrtle warblers making long flights overhead. The last one, a single bird, was seen September 19.