National Geographic Magazine/Volume 31/Number 4/Friends of Our Forests/Yellow Warbler

Yellow Warbler (Dendroica æstiva and races)


Length, little more than 5 inches. Mostly yellow, breast and belly streaked with reddish brown.

Range: North America, breeding generally throughout its range south to California, New Mexico, Missouri, and northern South Carolina; winters in Central and South America.

The “yellow bird,” or wild canary, as it is sometimes called, is one of the commonest of the warbler tribe and ranges over a vast extent of territory, being found here and there from ocean to ocean. Unlike some of its relatives, it prefers open thickets, especially of willows, to thick woodland, and often builds its pretty nest by the roadside or in garden shrubbery. Though not an expert musician, the yellow warbler sings early and often, and in zeal makes up what it lacks in quality of voice. Because its nest is easily found by the initiated, this warbler is often victimized by the infamous cowbird, and is forced to bring up one, or even two, young cowbirds in place of its own rightful progeny. It is pleasant to be able to record the fact that sometimes the clever warbler knows enough—how it knows it is another matter—to evade the unwelcome responsibilities thus thrust upon it, and builds a platform over the alien egg, and then continues its domestic affairs as originally planned. Indeed, cases are on record when two cowbirds' eggs have been found in a nest, each covered up by a separate layer of nest material.

(See Biol. Surv. Bull. 17, p. 20 et seq.; also Bull. 29.)

Source: Henry W. Henshaw (April 1917), “Friends of Our Forests”, The National Geographic Magazine 31(4): 307. (Illustration from p. 309.)