Michigan Ornithological Club 67 



NESTING OF KIRTLAND'S WARBLER IN NORTHERN MICHI- 

 GAN, 1904. 



EDWARD ARNOLD. 



On the 15th of June of the present year I found a nest and four fresh 

 eggs of the rare Kirtland's Warbler {Dendroica kirtlandi) in Oscoda County, 

 Michigan. This is the first set of eggs of this species known to science. 

 With an assistant I put in a week of very hard work. Up before four o'clock 

 every morning we spent the day constantly in the field, returning at dark, 

 often going without dinner. The male of the Kirtland's Warbler is a beau- 

 tiful singer, often singing close to the sitting female and occasionally quite 

 a distance from her, sometimes perched on. the top of a jack pine, other 

 times half-way down the tree and occasionally on the bottom branches. In 

 singing the male will throw his head back, his throat will swell out and a 

 note resembling Ter-ter-ter {ter-ter-ter) sir-wit-er-we , part enclosed fast, 

 will outpour itself. 



The bird seems to throw his whole soul into the music. I have watched 

 one sing for about thirty minutes at a stretch, usually, however, the male 

 will sing for about five minutes, then feed a little, hopping about the tree 

 and then down to the ground for a short time and back again to the top 

 part of the tree for another song. 



I did not find the bird outside of the elevated portions of the sand land 

 ridges. Here the jack pine grows abundantly and some of the dead ones 

 tower up fifty or sixty feet. It was one of the latter that formed a suitable 

 perch for a beautiful male. Here he would sing at different intervals all 

 day excepting if the day was very hot the music would cease about 11 :30 a. 

 m., until five or six in the afternoon. 



Besides the note I have given above, the male has three other distinct 

 shorter songs. It is so unsatisfactory recording in English the notes of birds 

 I will not inflict upon your readers my imitations of their songs. It took 

 me several days to get into my head the first song I here record, and al- 

 though it is as near as I can write it, is far from satisfactory to me. 



Contrary to Mr. Norman A. Wood's experience {Bull. Mich. Orn. Club, 

 Vol. v., pp. 1-13), I found these birds ten miles distant from the Au Sable 

 river and in full song so I am satisfied they breed a long distance from the 

 river. The nest is very cunningly concealed in the dense vegetation and as 

 it is down deep in the ground and the female a very close sitter, it is very 

 difficult to find. After I found the nest 1 watched the male for hours and 

 we did not once find the female, so I am satisfied that while the eggs are 

 fresh the female feeds herself and leaves the eggs for that purpose. 

 The nest I found June 15th, was at the foot of a small oak tree, which was 

 surrounded by a number of small jack pines. It is composed of vegetable 

 fibre, grasses, small weed stems and pine needles, and was surrounded by 

 the small pines, deer vine, wintergreen and weeds. 



The eggs are of a delicate white color, spotted with shades of brown 

 and pink, forming a ring near the larger end. The shells are very delicate 



