In two particulars—their tameness, or indifference to our presence, and the almost complete cessation of singing thus early in the season—the goldenwing differs from the other common birds which breed in much the same regions, the chestnut-sided warbler, redstart, northern yellow-throat, ovenbird, and veery.
Jacobs (1904) speaks of the anxiety of the parent birds if the nest is disturbed when the nestlings are nearly ready to fly. He says: “If the hand is placed near the nest at this period of their growth, they will scramble out and flutter away, all giving vent to their chipping note, which brings down upon the intruder the wrath of both old birds, who fly close to his face, snapping their beaks and chipping loudly; then down upon the ground they fall and feign the broken wing act as long as one of the young continues to chirp.”
Voice.—The song of the golden-winged warbler is an inconspicuous little buzzing sound which one might pass by unnoticed, or hearing it for the first time, might ascribe it to a mechanical sound made by some insect, not suspecting it to be the song of a bird. Only after we have become thoroughly familiar with the song do we grasp its definite character, so that we can pick it out even when we hear it in the distance among a medley of other voices. In this particular it resembles the songs of Henslow’s and the grasshopper sparrows, which are scarcely audible, and pass unregarded until well known.
The male goldenwing sings generally from a high perch, often from a branch bare of leaves; hence, once we find him, we can see him plainly. When he sings he throws his head back so far that his bill points almost to the zenith, and sings with it widely open, as if he were pouring out a great volume of sound. The bird sings freely from his arrival in spring until mid-June, about a month, often devoting himself to long periods of singing from the same perch. Later in the season, after the young have hatched, he sings only fitfully.
The song most often heard is composed of four notes, the first prolonged, and followed, after an almost imperceptible pause, by three shorter notes on a lower pitch. All four notes are delivered in a leisurely manner, drawling in tempo, and might be written zeee, zer-zer-zer. The first note takes up about half the time of the song. The quality of the voice is buzzing, and when heard near at hand, slightly rasping, with a lisping suggestion throughout. The song carries well; curiously it seems little louder when heard at close range, but from a distance it sounds smoother and, losing much of the buzzing quality, suggests a long drawn out thth, th-th-th, like a whispering wind. Occasionally there may be four short notes, and sometimes only two following the long initial note.
Like some of the other warblers, notably the black-and-white, chestnut-sided, and black-throated green, the goldenwing sings two distinct songs. In the second form the buzzing tone is nearly or wholly absent. It begins with about half a dozen short notes given in a quick series on the same pitch, and ends with one long note on a higher key, th-th-th-th-th-th-theee.
I have heard two males singing antiphonally, the responses repeated with perfect regularity for several minutes.
Of the minor notes the commonest is a short, slightly roughened dz. When much excited both adults use a chattering tchu-tchu-tchu, suggesting in manner of delivery the song of the short-billed marsh wren, although it is higher pitched and not so loud.
Francis H. Allen (MS.) mentions two other songs, only slightly different from the above. One goes something like “tick tick chick chick chick chick shree. The shree is a beady note resembling one of the cedar waxwing’s familiar notes.” Another song he writes as “see-see-see-see-see-see-see-see-see-dz'-dsee.”
Field marks.—The golden-winged warbler is easy to recognize; it is the only warbler that combines a blue-gray back and yellow in the wing. In the two other common warblers with a black throat, the black-throated blue and the black-throated green, the black runs down the sides a little way so that the white of the breast comes up in a peak in the middle of the breast, whereas in the goldenwing the line of division between the black and white runs straight across. From directly below, the goldenwing appears wholly black and white, and from this angle is marked like a chickadee, but a glance at its long, needle-sharp bill proclaims it a warbler of the genus Vermivora.