WESTERN PALM WARBLER 445 



N. A. Wood (1911) tells of a heavy migration of Avestern palm 

 warblers across Saginaw Bay, Mich. The first one was seen on August 

 24, and the numbers increased in successive migration waves of small 

 birds, until the third wave "occurred on the night of September 18, and 

 on the morning of the 19th the species was very abundant. There 

 must have been thousands of individuals about the light-house, where 

 they fed partly on flies that collected on the window screens and sides 

 of the house, and apparently also on ground insects and possibly 

 seeds of the beach grasses." These birds all passed on, and another big 

 wave came on October 5. "Among the birds in this movement there 

 were thousands of this species and of the myrtle, and large numbers 

 of black-throated blue, and black-throated green w^arblers, American 

 redstarts, j uncos, vesper sparrows and a few horned larks." 



The western palm warbler is an abundant fall migrant through the 

 broad Mississippi Valley to the Gulf States where it turns abruptly 

 eastward into Florida, crossing the fall route of the yellow palm 

 warbler. Although the main route is southward, chiefly w^est of the 

 Alleghenies, its trend is more eastward than the spring route. In 

 Massachusetts it occurs fairly regularly, though rarely, in fall; and 

 it is commoner in western Pennsylvania and in South Carolina in 

 fall than it is in spring, though it spends some winters in small num- 

 bers in the latter State. During the fall migration it frequents old 

 brush-grown fences, hedge row^s, brushy fields, and open pastures, 

 spending most of its time in low trees or bushes or on the ground, often 

 in company with the flocks of migrating sparrows, j uncos, and other 

 ground feeders. 



Winter. — Although the western palm warbler's winter home is 

 mainly in Florida, Cuba, and the West Indies, it is a hardy bird and 

 has been found in winter far north of its main winter range. For- 

 bush (1929) gives a number of December and January records for 

 Massachusetts, and a January record for Grand Manan, New Bruns- 

 wick. As a winter visitant in South Carolina, it seems to be irregular ; 

 Wayne (1910), strangely enough, says that "it appears more fre- 

 quently during severe winters than in milder ones." Dr Eugene E. 

 Murphey (1937) calls it abundant in the middle Savannah Valley, in 

 southern Georgia, arriving in October and departing early in April, 

 "and is to be found in low grassy damp meadows and particularly in 

 the cotton fields after the cotton has been picked and the leaves have 

 fallen." 



The western palm warbler is one of the characteristic small birds 

 in all parts of Florida in winter. In the regions where I have spent 

 the winter it is a common dooryard bird, hopping or running about 



