Warbler, why speed thy southern flight? Ah, why,
Thou, too, whose song first told us of the spring,
Whither away?
—Edmund Clarence Stedman.
Few birds have a wider and more extended range than the Black-poll Warbler. Wintering in the southern United States, Central America and the northern part of South America, they move northward in the spring, reaching Greenland and Alaska in June. Their range extends to the westward as far as the Rocky Mountains. Their breeding range is nearly confined to the regions north of the United States.
This little bird which travels so extensively is a little later than many of the warblers in arriving at its summer home, but it seems to waste little time on the journey, as it flies rapidly and stops but little to search for food. These words of the poet,
“And warblers, full of life and song—
All moving swiftly on their way,”
truthfully illustrate the flight of the Black-poll in its spring migration.
This species exhibits habits similar to those of the flycatchers and “may be considered as occupying an intermediate station between the flycatchers and warblers, having the manner of the former and the bill partially of the latter.” There is no better illustration of the saying that “The nice gradations by which nature passes from one species to another, even in this department of the great chain of beings, will forever baffle all the artificial rules and systems of man.”