NORTHERN OLIVE WARBLER 159 



any small bird passing high overhead in company with Bluebirds. They were 

 chance shots, certainly, but the only two- small birds obtained flying in this way 

 with the Bluebirds were Olive Warblers. * * * Generally they preferred 

 the largest branches of the pines when they alighted, though I took one not 

 more than three feet from the ground in a small bush. Their movements while 

 feeding or searching for food are very deliberate, though I noticed now and 

 again certain motions when at the extremity of a bough that reminded me of 

 a Kinglet or a Titmouse. 



Swarth (1940) says: "Though frequenting the tree tops to a great 

 extent, they seem singularly tame and unsuspicious, and several times 

 I have had one feeding in some of the lower branches, within arm's 

 reach of me, without its showing the least sign of fear." 



Voice. — The olive warbler has a rather loud, attractive, and distinc- 

 tive note, but few observers have referred to it as a song. The "beauti- 

 ful song" mentioned above consisted of "detached, melodious, whistling 

 notes." 



One of its whistling notes sounds very much like the peto note of 

 the tufted titmouse and might easily deceive the listener. Scott 

 (1885) observed that these warblers "had a call-note so like that of 

 their associates [the bluebirds] as to be almost identical. It seemed 

 to me only a clearer whistle of more silvery tone." Price (1895) saw 

 a male alight on a twig near his mate, during nest-building, uttering 

 "a liquid quirt, quirt, quirt, in a descending scale." Mr. Henshaw 

 (1875) heard "a few strange Vireo-like notes coming" from an olive 

 warbler. A bird that Dr. W. P. Taylor (MS.) watched in apparent 

 courtship gave "a whistled call with descending inflection." 



Field marks. — In general appearance and behavior the olive warbler 

 suggests the pine warbler, especially as it creeps over the pines. The 

 orange-brown head, neck, and breast of the adult male, with the con- 

 spicuous black band through the eye, is distinctive; these colors are 

 much paler and more yellowish in the female, and the band through 

 the eye is grayish. Both adults have two white wing bars, a white 

 area at the base of the primaries and much white in the tail, the white 

 areas being more restricted in the female. Young birds are much like 

 the female (see descriptions of plumages). 



Winter. — The olive warbler, as a species, is probably permanently 

 resident throughout most of its Mexican and Central American range. 

 But the northern olive warbler is evidently partially migratory, 

 though some individuals, perhaps many, remain in Arizona during 

 part, or all, of the winter. All of the 15 specimens taken by Stephens 

 for William Brewster (1882b) were collected in March, probably too 

 early to be migrants, and he says that Stephens had previously taken 

 one in February 1880, evidently a wintering bird. Mr. Swarth (1904) 

 writes : "I have not found this species very abundant in the Huachucas 

 at any time, but it is probably resident to some extent, for I secured 



