Life histories of North American wood warblers, Part 1 (of 2)Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American wood warblers, Part 1 (of 2)
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- North America; Passeriformes; Wood warblers
More than half a century passed before the bird again appeared in
America, this time in Louisiana. Charles S. Galbraith (1888), while
securing specimens of warblers at Lake Pontchartrain for the millinery
trade in the spring of 1886, took a single bird; in the two succeeding
years he collected a number of additional specimens, 6 in 1887 and 31 in
1888. These birds were evidently migrating, for the 31 were all taken
between March 2 and 20, and none could be found after the end of March.
Chapman (1907) comments on Galbraith's first specimen: "This specimen,
now in the American Museum of Natural History, is prepared for a
hat-piece. The feet are missing, the wings are stiffly distended, the
head bent backward in typical bonnet pose, and, had it not been for an
interest in ornithology which led Galbraith to take his unknown birds to
Mr. Lawrence for identification, this _rara avis_ might have become an
unappreciated victim on Fashion's altar."
Since then the records have multiplied; but _bachmanii_ has always been
an extremely local species, even in migrations, and breeds in primeval
swamps in small colonies, which are few and far between. At the present
writing, the bird is one of the very rarest of North American warblers.
It has been an unattained ideal to the writer; yet, having heard much
about its habits from the late Arthur T. Wayne and having visited with
him the former breeding grounds, he has some consolation for not having
met it in life.
Wayne (1901) took a specimen of this species on May 15, 1901, near Mount
Pleasant, which was the first record for South Carolina since Dr.
Bachman collected the type, and says: "I am positive that I have heard
this song nearly every summer in the same localities where the male was
found, but I always keep out of such places after April 10 on account of
the myriads of ticks and red bugs which infest them. Then, too, such
places are simply impenetrable on account of the dense blackberry vines,
matted with grape vines, fallen logs piled one upon another, and a dense
growth of low bushes."
_Spring._--From its winter home in Cuba Bachman's warbler enters the
United States through Florida, and according to Howell (1932) the
earliest date of arrival in that state is February 27. It has also been
recorded from Louisiana on the same date (Chapman, 1907). The majority
of individuals, however, cross to the United States mainland early in
March; apparently the birds that summer in Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas,
and Kentucky reach their breeding grounds by skirting the Gulf coast and
continuing up the Mississippi Valley. They reach the vicinity of
Charleston, S. C., in March and nesting begins at once, for Wayne (1907)
found a nest on March 27 containing one egg and another on April 3
with five well-incubated eggs. He calls attention to the fact that
Bachman's warbler therefore breeds earlier than the resident pine
and yellow-throated warblers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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