WARBLERS: WESTERN YELLOW WARBLER 
613 
the ordinary Warblers, often clambering slowly and deliberately over 
the branches in its search for food. Its song is said by W. W. Price 
to be a liquid “quirt, quirt, quirt, in a descending scale,” (1895, p. 17) 
and its call is “a rapid, whistled peto closely resembling the call of the 
Tufted Titmouse” (Chapman). As Mr. Swarth found one in the Hua- 
chuca Mountains in February when the snow was deep, and others in 
March, a few may winter in the mountains. 
Additional Literature.—Howard, O. W., Bull. Cooper Orn. Club (= Con¬ 
dor, vol. 1), 37-39, 1899.— Swarth, IT. S., Cooper Orn. Club of Calif., Pac. Coast 
Avifauna IV, 53, 1904.— Willard, F. C., Condor, XII, 104-107, 1910 (nest).l 
WESTERN YELLOW WARBLER: Dendroica aestiva mdreomi Coale. 1 
Description. — Male: Length (skins) 3.9-4.9 inches, wing 2.4-2.S. Female: 
Length (skins) 4-4.6 inches, wing 2.2-2.7. Adult male: Upperparts yellowish olive- 
green, the wing feathers broadly edged with yellow; tail feathers except middle pair 
with inner webs largely light yellow; underparts yellow, chest and sides narrowly streaked 
with brick-red. Adult female: Duller, streaks if present much duller, but usually 
wanting. Young: Similar to female but still duller, upperparts grayer, underparts 
sometimes dull whitish. 
Comparisons. —The two breeding Yellow Warblers of New Mexico can be dis¬ 
tinguished by range, the Lower Sonoran form, the Sonora, being as yet recorded only 
from the lower Rio Grande. In migration, however, all New Mexico forms may be 
found together, and can be safely identified only by careful comparison of skins. In 
general, the Alaska is the darkest and dullest, the head olive-green like the back, the 
wing edgings the least conspicuous; while the Sonora is the palest, with yellow head, 
yellowish olive-green back, pale underparts, chest and sides more narrowly streaked 
with brown. (See pp. 614, 615; Plate 64.) 
Range. —Breeds in western United States east to western Montana, Wyoming, 
and central Colorado south to northern New Mexico and west to Nevada; winters 
south through western and central Mexico at least to Panama. 
State Records. —The Yellow Warbler is represented in New Mexico by three 
forms: the Western is the common breeding bird of the northern half of the State, 
the Sonora breeds less commonly in the southern part, and the Alaska passes across 
the State in migration on the way from its Alaska breeding grounds to its winter 
home in Middle America. The breeding forms are abundant in their respective 
districts throughout the Rio Grande Valley. 
This race breeds south to Shiprock, 5,000 feet (Gilman); Espanola, 5,500 feet, and 
Rinconada, 5,800 feet (Surber); also probably at Anton Chico, 5,500 feet, and Ribera, 
6,000 feet (Bailey). [Common in the willows along streams in northern Santa Fe 
County, nesting up to 7,500 feet. Fresh eggs, June 1-15 (Jensen, 1922). Common 
in the cottonwoods at Albuquerque in June and July, 1917, and May 3, 1920. Young 
left the nest July 12, 1917; it was numerous in the Pecos Valley, May, 1924 (Ligon).] 
During the fall migration this form has been taken at about 6,000 feet, near the 
base of Sierra Grande, about August 15, 1903 (Howell), and at Camp Burgwyn, 
7,200 feet (Anderson), both of these places being above the normal breeding range. 
It has also been taken at Socorro, 4,600 feet, August 15, 1909 (Goldman), as it was 
migrating across the breeding grounds of sonorana. —W. W. Cooke. 
1 This replaces Dendroica aestiva aestiva in New Mexico, its recognition as a subspecies heretofore 
having been inadvertently overlooked. 
