Orange-crowned Warbler

Distinguishing Characters

Distinguishing Characters.- General color dusky olive-green, the underparts obscurely streaked; adult male, and often female, with an orange-brown crown patch; virtually no white in wings or tail.

Length (skin), 4.50; wing, 2.45; tail, 1.90; bill, .40. [inches]

♂ Adult Male, Spring.- Upper parts olive-green tipped with grayish, except on rump; an orange-brown crown-patch tipped with olive-green and gray; eye-ring and a narrow line from bill to above eye, yellow or yellowish; tail externally olive-green, inner margin of inner vane of outer feathers often white-edged; wings edged with olive-green, their bend yellow; underparts dusky greenish yellow indistinctly streaked.

♂ Adult Male, Fall.- Similar to above, but grayish tips to feathers above and below longer, making the bird duskier.

♂ Young Male, Fall.- Similar to adult male in Fall, but crown-patch very small or entirely absent.

♀ Adult Female, Spring.- Similar to adult male in Spring, but crown-patch smaller or wanting.

♀ Adult Female, Fall.- Similar to adult female in Spring, but grayish tips to feathers above and below longer, making the bird duskier.

♀ Young Female, Fall.- Similar to adult female in Fall, but crown-patch always (?) absent.

Nestling.- “Above dull olive, or grayish olive, becoming more olive-greenish or russet-olive on rump and upper tail-coverts; middle and greater wing-coverts tipped, more or less distinctly, with paler olive or dull buffy; throat, chest, sides of breast, sides and flanks pale brownish gray; tinged with dull buffy, especially on chest; abdomen white; otherwise like adults, but without trace of tawny-ochraceous on crown“. (Ridgw.)

The Bird and its Haunts

During the winter I have found the Orange-crowned Warbler a not uncommon inhabitant of the live-oaks in middle Florida where its sharp chip soon becomes recognizable. In Mississippi, at this season, Allison (MS.) says that “its favorite haunts are usually wooded yards or parks, where the evergreen live oak and magnolia can be found; but I have seen it most commonly among the small trees on the border of rich mixed woods, above an undergrowth of switch cane. Coniferous trees it seems not to care for, though I have seen it in the cypress swamps.”

The bird’s migration route in the spring appears to pass through the Mississippi valley and it is rare or unknown at this time of the year in the north Atlantic States. During the fall, however, it is not infrequently found there, Brewster’s records of nine individuals seen in his garden in Cambridge, in November, showing that it is both more common and later than was previously supposed.

Very little appears to have been written about the habits of this form of the Orange-crown in its summer home. Near Carberry, Manitoba, Seton says it is a common summer resident in the wooded sections, “moving about continually among the topmost twigs of the trees and uttering its little ditty about once every half minute.” About the Great Slave Lake, Kennicott (B. B. & R., I., 204) found the bird nesting among clumps of low bushes. In northern Alaska, Nelson states that the Orange-crown is a common summer resident of wooded regions, straggling southward as an autumn migrant to the shores of Behring Sea and Kotzebue Sound.

Song

“Its song is much like that of the Chipping Sparrow, but more musical and in a higher key.” (Seton.)

“Their song, only heard during the mating and breeding season, is a simple lay-a few sweet trills uttered in a spirited manner, and abruptly ending on a rising scale.” (Goss, Birds of Kansas.)

“The only note heard is a sharp, persistent, chipping, many times repeated, as the bird moves about the tree, often moving its wings restlessly, like a Kinglet.” (Allison, MS.)

“The song is full and strong, not very high pitched, and ends abruptly on a rising scale. My note book renders it chee chee chee chư chư. The first three syllables rapidly uttered, the last two more slowly. One heard late in the season sang more nearly like Mr. Thompson’s description: chip-e, chip-e, chip-e, chip-e, chip-e, but with the first vowel changed to e, thus eliminating what would appear to be a marked similarity to the song of Chippy. Even in this song the ending is retained.” (Jones.)


Eggs

“Average size .64x.46, white or creamy white, finely specked chiefly on the larger end with reddish or chestnut brown.”  (Davie.)

The eggs undoubtedly closely resemble those of the Lutescent Warbler. [A subspecies of the Orange-crowned Warbler.]

Frank M. Chapman – The Warblers of North America (1917)