Conspicuously Black and White 
times those of northern New England, are the chosen home of 
this little bird that builds a nest of bits of root, lichens, and sedges, 
amply large for a family twice the size of his. 
Black-and-white Creeping Warbler 
(Mniotilta varia) Wood Warbler family 
Called also : VARIED CREEPING WARBLER ; BLACK-AND- 
WHITE CREEPER ; WHITEPOLL WARBLER 
Length — 5 to 5.5 inches. About an inch smaller than the English 
sparrow. 
Male — Upper parts white, varied with black. A white stripe 
along the summit of the head and back of the neck, edged 
with black. White line above and below the eye. Black 
cheeks and throat, grayish in females and young. Breast 
white in middle, with black stripes on sides. Wings and 
tail rusty black, with two white cross-bars on former, and 
soiled white markings on tail quills. 
Female — Paler and less distinct markings throughout. 
Range — Peculiar to America. Eastern United States and west- 
ward to the plains. North as far as the fur countries. Win- 
ters in tropics south of Florida. 
Migrations — April. Late September. Summer resident. 
Nine times out of ten this active little warbler is mistaken for 
the downy woodpecker, not because of his coloring alone, but 
also on account of their common habit of running up and down 
the trunks of trees and on the under side of branches, looking for 
insects, on which all the warblers subsist. But presently the true 
warbler characteristic of restless flitting about shows itself. A 
woodpecker would go over a tree with painstaking, systematic 
care, while the black-and-white warbler, no less intent upon 
securing its food, hurries off from tree to tree, wherever the most 
promising menu is offered. 
Clinging to the mottled bark of the tree-trunk, which he so 
closely resembles, it would be difficult to find him were it not 
for these sudden flittings and the feeble song, “ Weachy, 
weachy, weachy, 'twee, 'twee, 'tweet," he half lisps, half sings 
between his dashes after slugs. Very rarely indeed can his nest 
be found in an old stump or mossy bank, where bark, leaves, 
and hair make the downy cradle for his four or five tiny babies. 
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