The Pine Warbler’s Song 
By CHRESWELL J. HUNT 
T WAS February, 1925. I was exploring the pine-clad hills west of 
I Little Rock, Arkansas. I had just surprised a big flock of Robins 
which had departed with much racket and I stood looking after 
them, for their hurried and noisy departure had startled me almost as 
much as my arrival had surprised them. All at once I heard a little song 
farther up the hillside—a monotonous little trill, much like the song of 
a Chipping Sparrow and yet so different. ‘““A Pine Warbler,” thought I, 
and straightway started up the hillside in the direction of that elusive 
trill, and by the way my first Arkansas Pine Warbler. A few minutes 
brought me to a pine grove where several Pine Warblers were singing— 
one in the tree directly above me, one from a tree slightly to my left and 
another at a greater distance on my right. One would sing his trill and 
be followed at once by one of the others but I doubt if there were any 
connection between the songs or were the singers answering each other 
as frequently two of the birds would sing almost simultaneously, but 
again one bird would almost appear to wait for another to complete its 
song before again “‘springing”’ his trill. 
Not a handsome song, this Warbler’s monotone, and yet what a 
wealth of memories were awakened. It was the meeting of an old friend 
in a new land—and yet under very similar surroundings, for no matter 
how far one journeys or over how diversified a country, he must go 
among the pine trees to find Pine Warblers and to hear them sing. 
There is no North American bird more aptly named than is the Pine 
Warbler for this little bird is almost as much a part of the pines as are 
pine cones and pine needles. To be sure we find plenty of pine woods 
without Pine Warblers but we almost never find Pine Warblers away 
from pine woods. The few records to the contrary being stray birds 
observed during migration. 
This little inconspicuously colored bird spends the greater part of his 
life in the pine trees; seeking his food along the branches and among the 
clumps of pine needles; building his nest and rearing the young amidst 
a clump of needles and singing his song from among the pine cones. 
Indeed, to one who has learned to know that song, the song itself is 
something akin to a pine tree, almost as much so as is the sighing of the 
wind among the pine boughs. It is indeed the voice of the pine woods. 
Were I to be blindfolded and led to an unknown spot and there hear a 
Pine Warbler sing I would inhale deeply expecting a scent of the pines 
and I would feel about for a carpet of pine needles. 
I was about to call my paper “The Pine Warbler” but it seems more 
appropriate that it should be called ‘The Pine Warbler’s Song,” for 
after all it is this bird’s song rather than the bird itself that I know. 
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