io6 High Tide of Bird Life [FIRST WEEK 



The first fairly dazzles us with its bluish crown, white and 

 black face, black and olive-green back, white marked 

 wings and tail, yellow throat and rump, and strongly 

 streaked breast. The blackburnian is an exquisite little 

 fellow, marked with white and black, but with the crown, 

 several patches on the face, the throat and breast of a 

 rich warm orange that glows amid the green foliage like 

 a living coal of fire. The black poll warbler is an easy 

 bird to identify; but do not expect to recognise it when it 

 returns from the North in the fall. Its black crown has 

 disappeared, and in general it looks like a different bird. 



At the present time when the dogwood blossoms are 

 in their full perfection, and the branches and twigs of the 

 trees are not yet hidden, but their outlines only softened 

 by the light, feathery foliage, the tanagers and orioles have 

 their day. Nesting cares have not yet made them fearful 

 of showing their bright plumage, and scores of the scarlet 

 and orange forms play among the branches. 



The flycatchers and vireos now appear in force little 

 hunters of insects clad in leafy greens and browns, with 

 now and then a touch of brightness as in the yellow 

 throated vireo or in the crest of the kingbird. 



The lesser sandpipers, both the spotted and the solitary, 

 teeter along the brooks and ponds, and probe the shallows 

 for tiny worms. Near the woody streams the so-called 

 water thrushes spring up before us. Strange birds these, 

 in appearance like thrushes, in their haunts and in their 

 teetering motion like sandpipers, but in reality belonging 

 to the same family as the tree-loving wood warblers. A 

 problem not yet solved by ornithologists is: what was the 



