Home › R › Range (Eastern North America west) (II)

Range (Eastern North America west) (II)

Eastern North America, west to the Plains; breeds from the Gulf States to Manitoba and Labrador; winters from the Gulf States southward. Washington, abundant S. R., Apl. 18 to Oct. 20. Sing Sing, common S. R., Apl. 28 to Oct. 23. Cambridge, abundant S. R., May 5 to Oct. 20. Nest, bulky, of strips of bark, coarse grasses, and dead leaves, lined with fine grasses, tendrils, and rootlets, on or near the ground. Eggs, three to five, white, rather thinly speckled and spotted with rufous to umber, chieflysometimes entirely-at the larger end, 70 x 53. One of the first acquaintances you will make, when you begin to look for birds, will be this black-masked inhabitant of thickets and bushes. Indeed, you have only to pause near his home, when he will meet you halfway. He announces his coming by an impatient, quickly repeated chack, varying to chit, pit, quit, as, hopping from twig to twig, he finally appears for a moment and then darts back into the cover of his haunts.

His song is characteristic of his active, nervous nature, and is delivered with much force and energy. It varies greatly with locality, a fact which may account for the quite different descriptions given of it by authors. Sometimes it is written wichity, wichity, wichity, wichity; again, rapity, rapity, etc.; but the birds near New York city seem to me to say I beseech you, I beseech you, I beseech you, I beseech you; though, to be sure, the tone is far from pleading. They sing throughout the summer, and in August add a flight song to their repertoire. This is usually uttered toward evening, when the bird springs several feet into the air, hovers for a second, and then drops back to the bushes. 681b. G. t. ignota Chapm. FLORIDA YELLOW-THROAT; PALMETTO BIRD.-Similar to the preceding, but with longer tarsus, tail, and bill; yellow of under parts of a deeper shade and of greater extent; flanks of a much darker color; upper parts browner; black mask wider, its ashy border (in summer specimens) slightly paler and of greater extent; first primary shorter, equaling the eighth instead of the sixth. W., 217; T., 2-18; B., 47.