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Blackburnian Warbler
Adult male--Upper parts streaked black and white; crown bright orange, surrounded by black; bright-orange line from bill over eye to back of cheek; under parts, throat, and breast bright orange; belly yellowish white, streaked with black.
Adult female--Upper parts dull olive instead of black; the yellow parts are replaced by dull orange. Length--5.25.
Breeding Range--From southern Maine, eastern Massachusetts, and northern New York northward; also along the Alleghanies from South Carolina northward.
The nest is described as being compactly made of spruce twigs, fine roots, shreds of bark, and soft plant down (especially cat-tail down), lined with hair, grass, tendrils, and sometimes feathers. It is placed in coniferous trees, at about twenty feet from the ground. 4 eggs are laid; they are white, tinged with green or blue and spotted or faintly blotched with various shades of brown and ashy lilac. Size--.69 x .50.
These warblers, the most brilliant-coloured of their family, are known to most of us only as migrants, reaching the neighbourhood of New York about the middle of May, on their way to their breeding places in the evergreen forests of Maine and northward.
The nests are completed probably about the end of May or beginning of June.