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Maryland Yellow-throat — Part 1
Adult male--Upper parts brownish olive green; forehead, cheeks, and side of throat black, with a light grayish edge back of it; breast, throat, and sides bright yellow; belly grayish white.
Adult Female--Plumage duller and without the black patch; the sides yellowish brown, shading into grayish white on the belly. Length--5.33.
Breeding Range--Throughout the Eastern States, from Georgia northward; westward to the plains.
The nests are usually placed on the ground; they are also built in low bushes, in almost any kind of place; they vary greatly both in size, shape, and in the materials used in their construction; they may be made of nothing but fine grass, very shallow resembling the nest of the field sparrow, or they may be very bulky, being as much as six inches high, outside measurement, and made of weeds, strips of bark, tendrils, grass, and leaves, the leaves only on the outside, with the lining of fine grass and hair. Some of the nests are made entirely of reeds and other coarse grass. The eggs are white with fine specks or spots of chocolate and purple, brown and lilac; the spots are not very numerous, and are mostly at the larger end. Usually the number of eggs is 4, sometimes 5 and rarely 6. Size--.70 x .53. See Fig. 16, Plate C.
The Maryland Yellow-throat is perhaps the most common of our warblers during the breeding season; he may be found in almost any thicket, but he undoubtedly prefers places that are damp or even marshy. Wherever he is, he will be found very much in evidence, being of an inquisitive nature and ever on the move, hopping about among the grass or, more often, in a tangle of low bushes.
The nest is described as difficult to find. Why, I do not quite understand; it seems much more easy to find than most of the other ground nests, unless it happens to be arched over, but that is rare. I have found the nests in raspberry vines, as shown in the accompanying illustration, but they are more often found in damp, grassy tangles. The young leave the nest when about five days old.