Heard in Central Park, New York, where they were set at liberty, the European goldfinches seemed to sing with more abandon, perhaps, but with no more sweetness than their American cousins. The song remains at its best all through the summer months, for the bird is a long wooer. It is nearly July before he mates, and not until the tardy cedar birds are house-building in the orchard do the happy pair begin to carry grass, moss, and plant-down to a crotch of some tall tree convenient to a field of such wild flowers as will furnish food to a growing family. Doubtless the birds wait for this food to be in proper condition before they undertake parental duties at all -- the most plausible excuse for their late nesting. The cares evolving from four to six pale-blue eggs will suffice to quiet the father's song for the winter by the first of September, and fade all the glory out of his shining coat. As pretty a sight as any garden offers is when a family of goldfinches alights on the top of a sunflower to feast upon the oily seeds -- a perfect harmony of brown and gold.
EVENING GROSBEAK (Coccothraustes vespertinus) Finch family Length -- 8 inches. Two inches shorter than the robin.
Male -- Forehead, shoulders, and underneath clear yellow: dull yellow on lower back; sides of the head, throat, and breast olive-brown. Crown, tail, and wings black, the latter with white secondary feathers. Bill heavy and blunt, and yellow.
Female -- Brownish gray, more less suffused with yellow. Wings and tail blackish, with some white feathers.
Range -- Interior of North America. Resident from Manitoba northward. Common winter visitor in northwestern United States and Mississippi Valley; casual winter visitor in northern Atlantic States.
In the winter of 1889-90 Eastern people had the rare treat of becoming acquainted with this common bird of the Northwest, that, in one of its erratic travels, chose to visit New England and the Atlantic States, as far south as Delaware, in great numbers. Those who saw the evening grosbeaks then remember how beautiful their yellow plumage -- a rare winter tint -- looked in the snow-covered trees, where small companies of the gentle and ever tame visitors enjoyed the buds and seeds of the maples, elders, and evergreens. Possibly evening grosbeaks were in vogue for the next season's millinery, or perhaps Eastern ornithologists had a sudden zeal to investigate their structural anatomy. At any rate, these birds, whose very tameness, that showed slight acquaintance with mankind, should have touched the coldest heart, received the warmest kind of a reception from hot shot. The few birds that escaped to the solitudes of Manitoba could not be expected to tempt other travellers eastward by an account of their visit. The bird is quite likely to remain rare in the East.
But in the Mississippi Valley and throughout the northwest, companies of from six to sixty may be regularly counted upon as winter neighbors on almost every farm. Here the females keep up a busy chatting, like a company of cedar birds, and the males punctuate their pauses with a single shrill note that gives little indication of their vocal powers. But in the solitude of the northern forests the love-song is said to resemble the robin's at the start. Unhappily, after a most promising beginning, the bird suddenly stops, as if he were out of breath.
BLUE-WINGED WARBLER (Helminthophila pinus) Wood Warbler family Called also: BLUE-WINGED YELLOW WARBLERLength -- 4.75 inches. An inch and a half shorter than the English sparrow.
Male -- Crown of head and all under parts bright yellow. Back olive-green. Wings and tail bluish slate, the former with white bars, and three outer tail quills with large white patches on their inner webs.
Female -- Paler and more olive.
Range -- Eastern United States, from southern New England and Minnesota, the northern limit of its nesting range, to Mexico And Central America, where it winters.
Migrations -- May. September. Summer resident.
In the naming of warblers, bluish slate is the shade intended when blue is mentioned; so that if you see a dainty little olive and yellow bird with slate-colored wings and tail hunting for spiders in the blossoming orchard or during the early autumn you will have seen the beautiful blue-winged warbler.
It has a rather leisurely way of hunting, unlike the nervous, restless flitting about from twig to twig that is characteristic of many of its many cousins. The search is thorough -- bark, stems, blossoms, leaves are inspected for larvae and spiders, with many pretty motions of head and body. Sometimes, hanging with head downward, the bird suggests a yellow titmouse. After blossom time a pair of these warblers, that have done serviceable work in the orchard in their all too brief stay, hurry off to dense woods to nest. They are usually to be seen in pairs at all seasons. Not to "high coniferous trees in northern forests," -- the Mecca of innumerable warblers -- but to scrubby, second growth of woodland borders, or lower trees in the heart of the woods, do these dainty birds retreat. There they build the usual warbler nest of twigs, bits of bark, leaves, and grasses, but with this peculiarity: the numerous leaves with which the nest is wrapped all have their stems pointing upward. Mr. Frank Chapman has admirably defined their song as consisting of "two drawled, wheezy notes -- swee-chee, the first inhaled, the second exhaled."CANADIAN WARBLER (Sylvania canadensis) Wood Warbler family Called also: CANADIAN FLYCATCHER; SPOTTED CANADIAN WARBLER;[CANADA WARBLER, AOU 1998]
Length -- 5 to 5.6 inches. About an inch shorter than the English sparrow.
Male -- Immaculate bluish ash above, without marks on wings or tail; crown spotted with arrow-shaped black marks. Cheeks, line from bill to eye, and underneath clear yellow. Black streaks forming a necklace across the breast.
Female -- Paler, with necklace indistinct.
Range -- North America, from Manitoba and Labrador to tropics.
