Range -- Eastern parts of North America. Nests from Nova Scotia
northward. Winters in the Gulf States.
Migrations -- April. October. Spring and autumn migrant.
While the uniform yellow of this warbler's under parts in any plumage is its
distinguishing mark, it also has a flycatcher's trait of constantly flirting
its tail, that is at once an outlet for its superabundant vivacity and a
fairly reliable aid to identification. The tail is jerked, wagged, and flirted
like a baton in the hands of an inexperienced leader of an orchestra. One need
not go to the woods to look for the restless little sprite that comes
northward when the early April foliage is as yellow and green as its feathers.
It prefers the fields and roadsides, and before there are leaves enough on the
undergrowth to conceal it we may come to know it as well as it is possible to
know any bird whose home life is passed so far away. Usually it is the first
warbler one sees in the spring in New York and New England. With all the
alertness of a flycatcher, it will dart into the air after insects that fly
near the ground, keeping up a constant chip, chip, fine and shrill, at one end
of the small body, and the liveliest sort of tail motions at the other. The
pine warbler often bears it company.
With the first suspicion of warm weather, off goes this hardy little fellow
that apparently loves the cold almost well enough to stay north all the year
like its cousin, the myrtle warbler.
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