Camera Studies of Wild Birds in Their Homes

Two hundred photographs of living wild birds, made when bird photography was new and hard — Chester Reed in the blind, the marsh and the treetop, telling how each picture was got.

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Yellow Warbler

The Yellow Warbler or "Summer Yellowbird" is a beautiful, little, golden sprite that we are sure to find flitting about in clumps of willows or alders that overhang almost any brook. We often find them, too, in orchards for they take very kindly to civilization. Its song is a simple little ditty, "cher-wee, cher-wee, swee- swee", very similar to that of the Chestnut-sided Warbler and the Redstart.

Yellow Warblers weave very pretty little homes of plant fibres in crotches of bushes, not very high above ground. One of the most beautiful nests that I ever have seen was made by a pair of these birds. It was located near a cotton mill and the outside of the nests was composed entirely of snow-white cotton, the inside being lined with the usual horsehair.

Fig. 187. OVENBIRD ENTERING NEST.
Fig. 187. OVENBIRD ENTERING NEST.

As far as my observations go, these warblers seem to be imposed on by Cowbirds more than any other unless it be the Chestnut-sided. The percentage of nests containing these obnoxious eggs is quite large and the resulting mortality due to the over-crowding of the nest, is also quite large among the little Yellow Warblers.

FISHER-BIRDS.

Fig. 188. NEST OF YELLOW WARBLER.
Fig. 188. NEST OF YELLOW WARBLER.
Fig. 189. NEST OF KINGFISHER.
Fig. 189. NEST OF KINGFISHER.

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