Setophaga fusca
Order Passeriformes
Family Parulidae
♂ Adult male.— Crown and line under eye black; back black, streaked with gray; wide bar on wing white; throat, breast, and line over eye bright reddish-orange; sides of breast streaked with black; belly whitish.
♀ Adult.— Similar, but duller, yellow replacing the orange.
Immature.— Similar to the female; the back browner, the yellow paler.
Nest, in evergreen trees, from ten to forty feet up.
Eggs, greenish-white, speckled or spotted, chiefly about the larger end, with reddish-brown.
The Blackburnian Warbler is a migrant through southern New England and the Hudson Valley, in May and September, rare in eastern New England, but fairly common in western New England and in the Hudson Valley. It breeds from the edge of the Canadian Zone northward, locally in deep hemlocks or pine woods at the southern border of its range, commonly in the coniferous forests of the north. The song of the Blackburnian Warbler is characterized by its extreme thinness; one form resembles a very wiry Redstart’s song, but the commoner form, by which the bird may always be recognized, may be described by the syllables wee, see, see, see, ză, ză, zi, ending in the thinnest note imaginable. The singer is generally feeding high in thick evergreens, and it is only now and then, when he comes out to the tip of a twig, that his splendid color is visible. If seen, it can never be mistaken or forgotten. The deep orange of the throat and breast is unlike the color of any other small bird, except the Redstart, where the orange is on the sides of the breast and the throat is black. The female and young may be known by the suggestion of buff in the yellow throat, and by the white wing-patch.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)