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Yellow Redpoll Warbler 



(Dendroica palmariim hypochrysea) Wood Warbler family 



Called also: YELLOW PALM WARBLER 



Lengths.'^ to 5.7s inches. A little smaller than the English 

 sparrow. 



Male and Female — Chestnut crown. Upper parts brownish olive; 

 greenest on lower back. Underneath uniform bright yellow, 

 streaked with chestnut on throat, breast, and sides. Yellow 

 line over and around the eye. Wings unmarked. Tail 

 edged with olive-green; a few white spots near tips of outer 

 quills. More brownish above in autumn, and with a grayish 

 wash over the yellow under parts. 



Range — Eastern parts of North America. Nests from Nova Scotia 

 northward. Winters in the Gulf States. 



Migrations — April. October. Spring and autumn migrant. 



While the uniform yellow of this warbler's under parts in 

 any plumage is its distinguishing mark, it also has a flycatcher's 

 trait of constantly flirting its tail, that is at once an outlet for its 

 superabundant vivacity and a fairly reliable aid to identification. 

 The tail is jerked, wagged, and flirted like a baton in the hands 

 of an inexperienced leader of an orchestra. One need not go to 

 the woods to look for the restless little sprite that comes north- 

 ward when the early April foliage is as yellow and green as i.i 

 feathers. It prefers the fields and roadsides, and before there are 

 leaves enough on the undergrowth to conceal it we may come to 

 know it as well as it is possible to know any bird whose home 

 life is passed so far away. Usually it is the first warbler one sees 

 in the spring in New York and New England. With all the 

 alertness of a flycatcher, it will dart into the air after insects that 

 fly near the ground, keeping i -^ a constant chip, chip, fine and 

 shrill, at one end of the small body, and the liveliest sort of tail 

 motions at the other. The pine warbler often bears it company. 



With the first suspicion of warm weather, off goes this hardy 

 little fellow that apparently loves the cold almost well enough to 

 stay north all the year like its cousin, the myrtle warbler. It 

 builds a particularly deep nest, of the usual warbler construction, 

 on the ground, but its eggs are rosy rather than the bluish white 

 of others. 



In the Southern States the bird becomes particularly neigh- 



203 



