THE 00L0QI8T 



Days With the Cerulean Warbler 

 (Dendroica Cerulea) 



By S. S. Dickey, Washington, Pa. 



The Cerulean Warbler, as a summer 

 resident in Eastern North America, 

 ranges as far north as southern On- 

 tario, as far west as Nebraska, and 

 south to Louisiana and Texas. The 

 bird is not common in the states of 

 the Alleghany mountains, and in many 

 places does not occur at all. The 

 species breeds mainly in the Austral 

 zones. Western New York, western 

 Pennsylvania' and western West Vir- 

 ginia seem to be favorite haunts of 

 these Warblers, for in these places 

 they are quite plentiful. They winter 

 in northern South America. 

 . .Dendroica cerulea is a bird of the 

 tree-tops, spending most of its time 

 in the upper parts of the woodlanc' 

 and seldom descending to the under- 

 growth. It gleans harmful insects and 

 larvae (of the orders, Diptera, Lepi- 

 doptera and Hemiptera) from the 

 opening buds and tender leaves. 

 Nature seems to have provided this 

 species especially to protect the high- 

 er foliage of our woods. While they 

 flit about the branches these Warblers 

 continually utter a sweet song, resemb- 

 ling the notes, zee-zee-zee, zweep; 

 with the ending note of a higher pitch 

 than the preceding ones. The male 

 bird does ihe singing, while the 

 female prepares the nest or incubates 

 her eggs. Since the birds seclude 

 themselves in the upper foliage, about 

 the only way to locate the haunts of 

 a pair is to wait for the male's song. 

 He sings frequently and remains in 

 the neighborhood of a few trees sel- 

 dom leaving the chosen cluster. 



The Cerulean Warblers arrive in 

 southwestern Pennsylvania late in 

 April or early May. Immediately up- 

 on their arrival the birds sing incess- 

 antly and may be found in any of the 

 woods that lie on the top or sides of 



ridges which abound in this section of 

 the state. For several years I have 

 heard their sweet song all through 

 tne month of May, but the birds did 

 not seem plentiful, so I decided they 

 were mere migrants. However, on 

 May 11, 1905, I went to a woods that 

 lay on a ridge and was fortunate 

 enough to find the Cerulean nesting. 

 I caught sight of a female carrying 

 building material to a horizontal 

 branch, forty feet up in a white oak. 

 ?/lay 24 1 returned to the woods and 

 upon ascending the tree found the 

 female Warbler at home upon four 

 eggs of her own and one of the cow- 

 bird, Molothrus ater. The nest was a 

 neat affair of inner bark strips, weed 

 strips, and fine grass, coated on the 

 outsido with light colored weed strips, 

 t;pider cocoons, and pieces of white de- 

 cayed wood. This nest rested partly 

 upon a horizontal limb of two inch 

 thickness and was supported by sev 

 eral upright twigs. During several 

 succeeding seasons I heard the Ceru- 

 leans singing and twice found nests 

 that had been blown from the trees 

 by severe wind storms. 



I had passed the two seasons prior 

 to 1914 in other parts of Pennsylvania, 

 where I had no opportunity for "tudy- 

 'ug the Cerulean Warbler. However, 

 during May and early June, 1914, the 

 Ceruleans were more plentiful than 

 ever before, some woods containing 

 four or five pairs of the birds. 



May 14, while I was examining a 

 nest of the blue-gray gnat-catcher, in 

 an open woods of oaks, high up on 

 a hillside, I spied a Cerulean Warbler 

 which gathered some building ma- 

 terial and flitted off through the trees. 

 I was not long in again getting a 

 glimpse of it, and soon traced it to a 

 I'.orizontal fork of a small white oak 

 tree. Several times I saw the bird 

 return to the fork and weave building 

 material about the nest foundation. 



