Setophaga coronata
Order Passeriformes
Family Parulidae
♂ Adult male.— Upper parts gray, with a bluish tinge in strong light; rump and small crown-patch yellow; wing bars white; cheeks black; throat white; sides of upper breast black, of lower breast yellow; belly white; three outer tail-feathers with large white spots.
♂ Adult female. — Upper parts browner; less black below.
Adult in winter and Immature.— Yellow crown-patch partly hidden by brownish; back brownish; breast washed with brownish; rump yellow; outer tail-feathers spotted with white.
Nest, in coniferous trees, five to ten feet up.
Eggs, grayish white, spotted with brown.
The Yellow-rumped Warbler is the only member of its family which winters in New York and New England; it is found in winter from Ipswich, Mass., south ward along the sea-coast wherever bayberries are abundant. It has even been found at Pine Point, Scarboro, Me., in January. Early in April the Yellow-rumped appears as a migrant, and early in May it becomes abundant. A few migrants occasionally reappear late in August, but the great host, now in their winter plumage, pass through late in September and through October. It breeds commonly in the extensive spruce forests of northern New York and New England; sparingly in Worcester and Berkshire counties, Mass., and here and there on the upland of southern New Hampshire and Vermont, wherever there are patches of spruce; in the southern part of its range it breeds occasionally in white pine groves.
The song is difficult to learn; it generally consists of two sets of phrases composed of the syllables wee-see-see-see, the second sometimes in a lower, sometimes in a higher key than the first, but neither of them at all sharp or decided. In spring it gleans insects from the twigs of trees, or flies out from the branches to catch the little winged creatures that swarm at this season; its yellow rump is now often hard to see, but the bird may be recognized, if seen from below, by the large black patches on the breast and the yellow patches lower down. Note also its white throat; it is the only white-throated warbler, except the Chestnut-sided, that has any yellow in its plumage. In winter, when it adds bayberries to its insect fare, it feeds in low bushes; when it flies up, the bright yellow rump and the spots of white on the outer tail-feathers make an unfailing fieldmark.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)