Setophaga magnolia
Order Passeriformes
Family Parulidae
Other names: Black and Yellow Warbler, Dendroica Maculosa
♂Adult male.— Head ashy; cheeks and back black; large patch of white on the wing; all the tail-feathers tipped with black for some distance, all but the central ones white above the tips; rump yellow; under parts yellow; breast and sides heavily streaked with black.
♀Adult female.– Similar, but duller.
Immature.— Upper parts gray; back greenish in strong light; rump and under parts yellow; tail as in adult.
Nest, from three to six feet up, in coniferous trees.
Eggs, white, marked with brown at the larger end.
The Black and Yellow Warbler is a migrant through southern New York and New England, common in western New England and in the Hudson Valley, fairly common in eastern New England. It arrives about the tenth of May, passes north before the end of that month, and returns in September, and early October. On migration the Black and Yellow seems to prefer evergreens, but when abundant, it is found in all suitable places. It is a common summer resident in the Canadian Zone, from the edge of the spruce belt northward. It delights in the pasture spruces, the thick growth of healthy young trees, whose lower branches sweep the hillsides; but it will live in almost any growth that contains spruce, even high up the mountain-sides.
The song is as characteristic a sound of the smaller patches of spruce as that of the Yellow-rump is of the more extensive tracts. Generally it suggests the syllables weely, weely, wichy, with a rising inflection at the close, but there are several variations, which can be learned only after long practice. The song generally has more character than that of the Yellow-rump. The alarm-note is a rather sharp chip; the bird has other short notes, one of which is a tizic, resembling the song of the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, but thinner and drier (F. H. Allen).
The Prairie, the Canada, and the Cape May are the other warblers whose yellow under parts are streaked with black. Neither the Prairie nor the Canada shows white on the wing: the Prairie has no ashy-gray or black on the upper parts; the Canada has no white in the tail. A study, too, of [their Figures], will show the difference in the pattern of black and yellow. The much rarer Cape May, which, like the Black and Yellow, has a yellow rump and white on the wing, may be distinguished by the black crown. In all plumages the tail of the Black and Yellow is a good field-mark; even when closed it shows white halfway down, and extensive black tips.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)
Distinguishing Characters
Adults of both sexes have the crown and nape gray, a white stripe behind the eye, the rump yellow, the white patches of the tail near the center, instead of at the end of the feather. The black bases of the tail feathers are concealed by the crissum and, seen from below, the tail appears to be white broadly tipped with black. In young birds the white is much decreased in extent but its position in the tail, together with the yellow rump, is diagnostic.
Length (skin), 4.50; wing, 2.30; tail, 1.95; bill, .35. [inches]
♂ Adult Male, Spring.- Crown and nape bluish gray, a white line behind the eye and a white mark on the lower part of eye-ring; frontlet, cheeks and back black, the latter sometimes with olive and becoming greenish towards the yellow rump; upper tail-coverts black; tail black, all but the central part of feathers with a white patch on the inner half of the web about half-way to the tip; wings blackish edged with gray, the median and greater coverts broadly marked with white forming a conspicuous white wing-patch; below yellow becoming white on the crissum, the throat unmarked, a black band on the upper breast from which run rows of heavy black streaks on the sides.
♂ Adult Male, Fall.- Quite unlike adult male in Spring; crown and nape brownish gray; eye-ring whitish; back olive-green more or less indistinctly streaked with black; rump yellow; tail as in Spring; wing-coverts tipped with white forming two white bars; below yellow, sides with partly concealed black streaks, upper breast with a faint dusky band.
♂ Young Male, Fall.- Similar to adult male in Fall and not always distinguishable from it, but black streaks of back and sides averaging lighter.
♀ Adult Female, Spring.- Similar to adult male in Spring but crown not so bluish gray or cheeks so pronouncedly black; back olive-green spotted with black; yellow of rump paler; upper tail-coverts broadly tipped with gray; wing-coverts with less white, at times merely tipped not margined; black streaks below lighter, less apt to form a band on the upper breast.
♀ Adult Female, Fall.- Crown browner than that of adult female in Spring, a whitish eye-ring but no white stripe behind eye; cheeks much like crown; back brownish olive-green with a few partly concealed black streaks posteriorly; white on wing-coverts less pronounced and with a brownish tinge; sides with a few partly concealed black streaks; the dusky band on upper breast well developed. In this plumage resembling young male in Fall but wing-coverts browner and with less white.
♀ Young Female, Fall.- Resembling adult female in Fall but the crown and back browner, the black streaks above usually wanting, the rump less clearly yellow, the streaks on the sides finer, less prominent.
Nestling.- Above brown, sometimes ruddy in tone, indistinctly streaked with black; breast dusky brown; belly whitish streaked with blackish; wingcoverts tipped with buffy.
The Bird and its Haunts.
In this day of numerous bird manuals, keys, etc. book knowledge of a bird usually precedes our actual meeting with the species in life and we are more or less prepared for the encounter; but before the day of these publications the embryo ornithologist was sometimes thrilled by the ‘discovery’ of birds which, as far as he was aware, no one had ever seen before.
William Brewster’s monograph of the Magnolia Warbler contains a description of such an experience which we are sure will appeal to every bird lover, whether or not it has been his good fortune to begin his study of birds in a similarly memorable manner. Mr. Brewster writes: “Entering a grove of thickly growing young spruces, I sat down to rest on a mossy log. I had been there but a short time when I became conscious of faint sounds in the trees above and around me, chirpings, twitterings, and occasionally a modest little effort at song. Watching attentively, I soon spied a movement among the branches, and a tiny bird hopped out into the light, presenting a bright yellow breast and throat for just a moment before flying into the next tree. Here was a revelation! I already knew a few of the most familiar birds, -the Robin, the Bluebird, the Sparrow, the Oriole, and some others; but it had never occurred to me that dark forests like these might be tenanted by such delicate and beautiful forms. Only the tropics surely could boast such gems.”
This was before the day of ‘keys’; the opera-glass had not supplanted the gun and “with enthusiasm now fairly aroused and animated with the spirit of the explorer” the young ornithologist “went at once to work to investigate, and in the course of an hour or two, my ammunition was nearly exhausted, and quite a line of poor lifeless, mutilated little birds lay along the old log.
Scarcely any two of my specimens were alike, and as I contemplated in amazement their varied forms and coloring, I felt like the discoverer of a new world, and doubted whether human eyes had ever beheld the like before. I can recall with sufficient distinctness for identification but a single bird of them all, a fine adult male Black and Yellow Warbler (as this species was then called), which at the time I considered the handsomest and which I still think cannot be surpassed in beauty by any New England representative of the family.”
Later, in the same paper this author states that as a spring migrant in eastern Massachusettts the Magnolia Warbler is abundant, frequenting “willow thickets near streams, ponds, and other damp places. It is also not unusual to find many in the upland woods, especially where young pines or other evergreens grow thickly.” In the autumn, he adds, it is less common and its haunts are then “somewhat different from those which it affects during its northward journey. We now find it most commonly on hillsides, among scrub-oaks and scattered birches and in company with such birds as the Yellow-rump (Dendroica coronata) and the Blackpoll (D. striata).”
About Monadnock, Gerald Thayer writes: “This most beautiful Warbler is a common summer bird between 2,800 and 1,000 feet, wherever there are second growth spruce woods, and especially such woods combined with bits of upland pasture. ‘Spruce Warbler’ would be an appropriate name for it in this region-quite as appropriate as ‘Birch Warbler’ for the Nashville. These two birds may often be found almost together on the same pasture-border; but the Magnolia keeps to the spruces (and other conifers) at least as strictly as the Nashville keeps to the birches (and other broad-leaf trees).
“The feeding-range or ‘beat’ of this Warbler in its chosen summer woodlands about Monadnock, lies between the tip-tops of second growth spruce trees and their lowest branches. Although not shy, it is apt to stick rather closely to the inner recesses of spruce clumps, less often showing itself on the outermost twigs than do the Blackburnian and Black-throated Green. In its movements it is fidgety and quick, and it often partly spreads its broadly and centrally white-banded tail, distinctive of the species in all plumages.” (Thayer, MS.)
Song
“The Magnolia belongs among the full-voiced Warblers, and is a versatile singer, having at least two main songs, both subject to much and notable variation. The typical form of the commoner song is peculiar and easily remembered: Weeto weeto weeétee-eet, or Witchi, witchi, witchi tit, the first four notes deliberate and even and comparatively low in tone, the last three hurried and higher pitched, with decided emphasis on the antepenult weet or witch. The other song has the same general character, and begins with nearly the same notes, but instead of ending with the sprightly, high-pitched wéeteeeet“, it falls off in a single perfunctory-sounding though emphatic note, of lower tone than the rest. In syllables it is like Witti witti wét,” or weetee weetee wúr. This duller song seems much less subject to variation than the sprightly one. Some of the aberrant songs, though, are as near to one type as another. One such variant I have fixed in my own recollection by the syllables Ter-whiz wee-it; and another, almost unrecognizable, by the syllables Weé-yer weéyer wee-yer. Still another beginning like Weechi wéech, ended with a hurried confusion of small notes, some low, some high. But throughout these and all the many other surprising variations I have heard about Monadnock, the characteristic tone-quality was preserved unchanged, and so were certain minor tricks, scarcely describable, of emphasis and phrasing. The tone is much like the Yellow Warbler’s and also the Chestnut-side’s, though distinctly different from either. In loudness it averages lower than the Yellow’s, and about equal to the Chestnut-side’s. In addition to several barely characteristic ‘chips’ the Magnolia has a most peculiar call-note. It is soft, almost song-toned, with a slight metallic ring, and at the same time sounds lisped; -tlep, tlep, reminding one of certain notes both of the American Siskin and (as Dr. G. M. Allen says) of Henslow’s Sparrow.” (Thayer, MS.)
Miss Paddock gives four variations of the Magnolia’s song, and writes:
“The song usually ends with the falling inflection. It may always do so when the two records ending on the high note were where I failed to catch the very last note.”
Nesting Site
“The nest is usually placed in a small fir or spruce and rarely at a greater elevation than five or six feet. The average height would probably not exceed four feet, and I have found some barely twelve inches above the ground. It is usually laid somewhat loosely among the horizontal twigs from which it can in most cases be lifted intact. Exceptional situations are the interior of the woods, where, in some cases, the nest is placed in the top of a young hemlock ten or fifteen feet up. In one instance I found a nest on a horizontal spruce limb in the very heart of the forest, and at least thirty-five feet above the ground.” (Brewster2.)
A large amount of data from northern New England confirms Brewster’s observations in regard to the normal nesting site of this species in that region, but Simpson states that in the mountains of Pennsylvania, at Warren, the great majority of nests are built about ten to twelve feet up in the tops of small hemlocks or out on the branches of larger trees.
At Branchport, New York, Burtch (MS.) finds the nest “in hemlocks usually on a horizontal limb from eight to twenty feet up and over an opening in the woods. Several nests were found in the top of little hemlock saplings from one to five feet from the ground. One nest was found by Mr. C. F. Stone in a birch sapling, this being the only instance to my knowledge of its nesting in a tree other than a hemlock.”
Nest
Nests in Mr. Brewster’s collection from northern New England are made of small coniferous twigs, which project over the edges in irregular fashion, pine needles, grasses, bits of down or spider’s webbing, lined with fine, dull black, hair-like rootlets, often so abundantly as to make the nest interiorly black in marked contrast to the brown exterior.
Burtch (MS.) describes the nest as “loosely constructed of fine hemlock twigs, with sometimes a few weeds, lined with fine black rootlets, hair, or fine dead grass, usually decorated with fern down.”
Eggs
3 to 6, usually 4. Ground color of average specimen is dull creamy white, over this are spots and blotches of many shades of reddish brown, hazel, and chestnut, in some specimens purplish and pale lavender, but in nearly all cases the egg is heavily marked on the large end in form of a well defined wreath. Size; average, .65x.48; extremes measure .61x.45, 72x.45, .66x.51.
Frank M. Chapman – The Warblers of North America (1917)