Incubation is accomplished in twelve days; and one or two broods are raised, according to locality and length of season.
We lose sight of most of the birds, especially the smaller ones, after the heyday of springtime, but here is one who, because he has forsworn wandering, is making delicate overtures of confidence toward mankind. This year, especially, now that the dense tract of woods north of the University has been cut out, they linger about our neighborhood with the matter-of-factness of Bluebirds. The young ones play about the eaves or make sallies at passing flies from the window-sills, and yawn with childish insouciance if mamma suggests, by a sharp tchip, that enemies may lurk behind the curtains. They know it’s only habit with her, and she doesn’t believe it herself. The adult attire is duller now, and only the yellow rump-patch remains for recognition by a friend. The year is waning, no doubt of that, but October sunshine is good enough for us—or November rains. Let them flit who will! Washington is good enough for us, you in your fir house and I in mine.
No. 76.
BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER.
A. O. U. No. 665. Dendroica nigrescens (Towns.).
Description.—Adult male in spring and summer: A supraloral spot of yellow; remaining plumage black, white and blue-gray; head, throat and chest black interrupted by superciliary stripes and broad malar stripes of white; remaining upperparts blue-gray, marked with black in inverted wedge-shaped spots on back, scapulars and upper tail-coverts; wings and tail black edged with bluish ash, the middle and greater coverts tipped with white, forming two conspicuous wing-bars, the four outer rectrices blotched with white on inner webs in sharply decreasing area, the outermost chiefly white, the fourth merely touched; sides white streaked with black or striped black-and-white; remaining underparts white. Adult female: Like male but duller, the black of crown partly veiled by blue-gray skirting, that of throat reduced by white tips of feathers. Young birds resemble the female but the black of crown and throat is almost entirely hidden by blue-gray and white respectively, and the area of the tail blotches is much reduced. Length about 5.00 (127); wing 2.44 (62); tail 1.97 (50); bill .36 (9.2); tarsus .69 (17.5).
Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; black and white and blue-gray coloration distinctive.
Nesting.—Nest: a rather loosely built structure of dead grasses, silky plant fibers, moss, etc., placed midway on horizontal limb of conifer 25-50 feet from ground; measures, externally, 3 inches wide by 2 deep, internally 1¾ wide by 1 deep. Eggs: 4, creamy white, marked, chiefly about the larger end with spots and small blotches of varying shades of brown, lavender and black. Av. size, .83 × .63 (21 × 16). Season: last week in May and first week in June; one brood.
BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLERS, MALE AND FEMALE.
General Range.—Western United States (north to Colorado, Utah and Washington), and British Columbia west of the Cascades; breeding southward to Southern California, southern Arizona and Lower California; south in winter thru Mexico and States of Oaxaca and Vera Cruz.
Range in Washington.—Summer resident and migrant west of the Cascade Mountains.
Migrations.—Spring: Seattle-Tacoma c. April 12. Fall: c. Sept. 1 (Blaine).
Authorities.—Sylvia nigrescens Townsend, Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. VII. 1837, 191 (“forests of the Columbia River”). C&S. L¹. D¹(?). Ra. Kk. B. E.
Specimens.—U. of W. Prov. B. E.
Black and white and gray are sober colors in themselves, but a skillful arrangement of all three has produced a handsome bird, and one whose dainty dignity requires no meretricious display of gaudy reds and yellows. Warblers are such tiny creatures at best that Nature has given little thought to their protective coloration. This plain-colored bird does not, therefore, shun the greenery of fir and fern, and yet we feel a peculiar fitness when he chooses for a song station some bare dead limb, gray and sober like himself.
Last year the first arrival in Seattle seated himself upon a projecting limb of a dead cedar which commanded the quiet sylvan depths of Cowan Park, and left him fairly abreast of the Fifteenth Avenue viaduct. Here he divided his time between song and enjoyment of the scene, sparing a friendly glance now and then for the admiring bird-man. His manner was complaisant and self-contained, and I felt that his little vocal offerings were a tribute to the perfect morning rather than a bid for applause.
The song of the Black-throated Gray is quite unpretentious, as Mrs. Bailey says,[25] “a simple warbler lay, zee-ee-zee-ee, ze, ze, ze, with the quiet woodsy quality of virens and cœrulescens, so soothing to the ear.” It is this droning, woodsy quality alone which must guide the ear of a listener in a forest, which may be resounding at the same time to the notes of the Hermit, Townsend, Audubon, Lutescent, and Tolmie Warblers. Occasionally even this fails. An early song which came from a young male feeding patiently among the catkins of some tall, fresh-budding alders, had some of the airy qualities of the Kinglet’s notes, “Deo déopli, du du du, deo déo pli, deo deo pli, deo deo pli”—a mere fairy sibilation too fine for mortal ears to analyze. Another said boldly, “Heo flidgity; heo flidgity,” and “Heo flidgity, chu wéo.”
Taken near Blaine. Photo (retouched) by the Author.
“UPON THE OVERHANGING LIMB OF AN APPLE TREE.”
This Warbler is of rather irregular distribution in the western part of the State, where alone it is found. A preference is shown for rather open woodland or dense undergrowth with wooded intervals. The fir-dotted prairies of the Steilacoom area are approved, and the oak groves have their patronage. During the August migration I have found the bird almost abundant at Blaine. They are curious, too, and by judicious screeping I succeeded in calling the bird of the accompanying illustration down within five feet upon the overhanging limb of an apple tree.