Part 75

Winter.--Says Professor Cooke (1904): "The cerulean warbler is chiefly found in winter in South America from Panamá south to Perú, in which country it seems to have its center of abundance. In western Perú Jelski (Taczanowski, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 508, 1847) found it common at Monterico and other places in the mountains east of Lima at 10,000 to 13,000 feet elevation, always in wandering flocks, which were sometimes quite large and contained both old and young birds."

DISTRIBUTION

Range.--North and South America from southern Canada to Perú and Bolivia.

Breeding range.--The cerulean warbler breeds =north= to southern Minnesota (Minneapolis); southern Wisconsin (Barahoo Bluffs, Madison, and Racine, possibly as far north as New London); central Michigan (Saginaw, Locke, and Detroit); southern Ontario (Thedford, Plover Mills, Warren, and Delta; perhaps Manotick); and southern New York (Lockport, Rochester, Ithaca, Santa Cruz Park, and Wappingers Creek, Dutchess County). =East= to southeastern New York (Dutchess County); rarely northeastern Maryland (Towson); southwestern Delaware (Seaford); western Virginia (Charlottesville and Natural Bridge); western North Carolina (Morganton and Pink Beds); and northern Georgia (Lumpkin County and Atlanta). =South= to north-central Georgia (Atlanta); south-central Alabama (Autaugaville and Greensboro); northern Louisiana (Monroe and Caddo Lake); and northern Texas (Texarkana and Dallas). =West= to northeastern Texas (Dallas); northeastern Oklahoma (Copan); southeastern Kansas (Independence); eastern Nebraska (Omaha and Pilgrim Hill, Dakota County); western Iowa (Sioux City); and southern Minnesota (Minneapolis).

Winter range.--The winter home of the cerulean warbler is northwestern South America, in the valleys of the Andes from central Colombia (Antioquia, Medellín, and Bogotá) through Ecuador (Río Napo, Sara-yacu, and the Pataza Valley); to southern Perú (Huachipa and Lima). It has also been found occasionally or accidentally in central northern Venezuela (Rancho Grande); and in western Bolivia (Nairapi and Tilotilo near La Paz). Casual in winter or migration in the Cayman Islands and western Cuba.

Migration.--Late dates of spring departure are: Perú--Huambo, March 15. Ecuador--near San José, March 31. Colombia--Buena Vista, March 4. Florida--Pensacola, April 26. Texas--Austin, April 30.

Early dates of spring arrival are: Florida--Dry Tortugas Island, March 23. Alabama--Greensboro, March 26. Georgia--Atlanta, April 13. South Carolina--Clemson (College), April 21. North Carolina--Asheville, April 23. Virginia--Charlottesville, April 13. West Virginia--Wheeling, April 23. Pennsylvania--McKeesport, April 23. New York--Corning, April 25. Louisiana--Grand Isle, March 27. Arkansas--Tillar, April 6. Tennessee--Athens, April 4. Kentucky--Eubank, April 5. Illinois--Olney, April 18. Indiana--Bloomington, April 11. Michigan--Bay City, April 26. Ohio--Toledo, April 20. Ontario--Hamilton, April 25. Missouri--St. Louis, April 12. Iowa--Hillsboro, April 18. Minnesota--Faribault, April 29. Texas--Victoria, March 17. Oklahoma--Copan, March 27. Kansas--Independence, April 24.

Late dates of fall departure are: Ontario--Point Pelee, September 5. Michigan--Detroit, September 5. Ohio--Ashtabula, September 27. Indiana--Whiting, October 4. Illinois--Chicago, September 28. Kentucky--Versailles, September 4. Tennessee--Athens, September 27. Mississippi--Gulfport, September 17. Oklahoma--Copan, October 1. Texas--Austin, September 27. New York--New York, September 18. Pennsylvania--Berwyn, September 29. North Carolina--Raleigh, September 16. Georgia--Augusta, September 16. Alabama--Birmingham, September 21. Florida--Pensacola, September 18. Costa Rica--San José, October 24.

Early dates of fall arrival are: Texas--Austin, July 20. Mississippi--Beauvoir, July 12. Virginia--Sweet Briar, July 20. Georgia--Athens, July 28. Florida--Pensacola, July 23. Costa Rica--Villa Quesada, August 23. Ecuador--Río Oyacachi, August 10. Perú--Huachipa, October 3.

Casual records.--The majority of the cerulean warblers found east of the Allegheny Mountains might be considered as casual. All records for New England should as yet be so considered, though the species has increased in eastern New York in recent years. About 10 individuals have been recorded in Massachusetts; two in Rhode Island, and one in New Hampshire. On June 2, 1924, one was collected at Whitewater Lake, in southwestern Manitoba, the farthest north that the species has been found. There are two records for North Dakota; one near Jamestown on May 28, 1931, and another near Minot on May 24, 1937. A cerulean warbler was recorded near Denver, Colorado, on May 17, 1883, and a specimen collected on September 2, 1936, on Cherry Creek in Douglas County. A bird "observed at the Mimbres during the latter part of April" is the only record for New Mexico. On October 1, 1947, a specimen was collected at the southeastern edge of the Salton Sea in California; and on October 2, 1925, a specimen was collected near La Grulla in the Sierra San Pedro Mártir, Baja California.

Egg dates.--Ontario: 3 records, June 2 to 13.

New York: 22 records, May 29 to July 9; 15 records, June 1 to 4.

Pennsylvania: 5 records, May 16 to 26.

DENDROICA FUSCA (Muller)

BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER

PLATES 40, 41

HABITS

Bagg and Eliot (1937) give the following account of the history of the naming of the Blackburnian Warbler:

Some time in the later eighteenth century, a specimen (apparently female) was sent from New York to England, and there described and named for a Mrs. Blackburn who collected stuffed birds and was a patron to ornithology. Blackburniae--Gmelin's latinization, in 1788, of this English name--was its scientific designation until quite recently, when in an obscure German publication, dated 1776, were discovered a description of a specimen from French Guiana (which is well east of the species' normal winter range), and the name fusca, blackish. Wilson recognized the male as a rare transient near Philadelphia, but when he shot a female (apparently, though he called it a male) in the Great Pine Swamp, Pa., he named it Sylvia parus, the Hemlock Warbler. Audubon, too, considered the Blackburnian and Hemlock Warblers distinct.

Blackburnian seems to be a doubly appropriate name, for its upper parts are largely black and its throat burns like a brilliant orange flame amid the dark foliage of the hemlocks and spruces. A glimpse of such a brilliant gem, flashing out from its sombre surroundings, is fairly startling.

Throughout most of the eastern half of the United States the Blackburnian warbler is known only as a migrant, mainly from the Mississippi Valley eastward. Its summer range extends from Manitoba eastward to Nova Scotia, from Minnesota to New England, and southward in the Allegheny Mountains to South Carolina and Georgia, in the Lower Canadian and Upper Transition Zones. For its breeding haunts it prefers the deep evergreen woods where spruces, firs, and hemlocks predominate, or often swampy woods where the black spruces are thickly draped with Usnea, offering concealment for birds and nests.

In Massachusetts, which is about the southern limit of its breeding range in New England, William Brewster (1888) describes its haunts at Winchendon as follows: "On both high and low ground, wherever there were spruces in any numbers, whether by themselves or mixed with other trees, and also to some extent where the growth was entirely of hemlocks, the Blackburnian Warbler was one of the most abundant and characteristic summer birds, in places even outnumbering the Black-throated Green Warbler, although it shunned strictly the extensive tracts of white pines which D. virens seemed to find quite as congenial as any of the other evergreens."

Gerald Thayer wrote to Dr. Chapman (1907) that at Monadnock, New Hampshire, it is "a very common summer resident. It is one of the four deep-wood Warblers of this region, the other three being the Black-throated Blue, the Northern Parula and the Canada. While all the other summer Warblers of Monadnock seem better pleased with various sorts of lighter timber, these four are commonest in the small remaining tracts of primeval woodland, and in the heaviest and oldest second growth. But despite this general community of habit, each of the four has marked minor idiosyncrasies. The Blackburnian favors very big trees, particularly hemlocks, and spends most of its life high above the ground."

Professor Maurice Brooks (1936) says that Blackburnian warblers "are thoroughly at home in the deciduous second-growth timber that in so many places has replaced the coniferous forest. They range down to elevations of 2,500 feet in northern West Virginia. Here they associate with Golden-winged and Chestnut-sided warblers. A favorite perch is on some chestnut tree that has been killed by the blight." Rev. J. J. Murray tells me that, in Virginia, it is "common above 1,500 feet, wherever there are conifers." And Thomas D. Burleigh (1941) says of its status on Mount Mitchell in western North Carolina: "Although not known to breed above an altitude of approximately 5,000 feet, this species is fairly plentiful during the late summer in the fir and spruce woods at the top of the mountain, appearing regularly in July and lingering through September."

Spring.--The Blackburnian warbler is apparently rare in spring in the Atlantic States south of North Carolina; its migration range extends westward to the plains of eastern Texas, eastern Kansas, and eastern Nebraska, but it is rare west of the forested regions of the Mississippi Valley. Professor Cooke (1904) says that the average rate of migration "from the mouth of the Mississippi to its source, where it breeds, appears to be scarcely 25 miles per day." Forbush (1929) writes:

It is generally regarded as rare in migration in Massachusetts, though probably untold numbers pass over the state every year, but only a few stop here. It is not when the birds are migrating that we see them, but when they stop to rest. * * * I can recall but two instances in my lifetime when myriads of Blackburnian Warblers stopped here, though other similar flights probably have come when I was not there to see. At sunrise one morning in early May, many years ago, when the tiny green leaves were just breaking forth on the tall trees of the woods near Worcester, Blackburnians were everywhere in the tree-tops. They swarmed in the woods for miles. Years later, in Amesbury, on another May morning, the night flight, having met a cold wave from the north with a light frost, had come down to earth and the birds were busily looking for food; many Blackburnians and many other warblers were in the low shrubbery, in the grass, and even on plowed fields in every direction all through the village and about the farms. The sudden cold had stopped them. A few hours later as the day grew warmer they disappeared and were not seen again.

Brewster (1906) says: "We see the beautiful Blackburnian oftenest during the later part of May, in extensive tracts of upland woods, where it spends much of its time in the tops of the larger trees, showing a decided preference for hemlocks and white pines. In Cambridge I have repeatedly observed it in our garden and the immediate neighborhood, usually in tall elms or in blossoming apple trees."

Nesting.--So far as I can learn, the nest of the Blackburnian warbler is almost always placed in a coniferous tree at heights ranging from 5 feet to over 80 feet above the ground; nests have been reported many times in hemlocks, which seems to be a favorite tree, but also in spruces, firs, tamaracks, pines and even a cedar. Ora W. Knight (1908) says: "I have found them breeding in colonies as a rule, that is to say, in a rather dense, mossy carpeted tract of evergreen woods near the pond at Pittsfield [Maine], covering perhaps a square mile, there were about ten pairs of these birds to be found, and in a tract of similar woods about half this size at Bangor there are often six or eight pair nesting. In other words, in suitable localities they tend to congregate in loosely scattered assemblies, while in less suitable spots, generally none, or at most a single pair will be found." Of a nest found near Winchendon, Mass., Brewster (1888) writes: