Guide to Boreal Birds
Perching Birds Overview
This attractive bird was rare in the days of Audubon and Wilson, who seldom saw it and knew little about its habits. It has increased tremendously as abandoned pastures in the northern states have grown up in dense thickets, a vast new habitat unavailable when the land was covered with virgin forest.
Description
5" (13 cm). Sexes similar: yellow-green crown; long chestnut line on sides; white underparts; streaked back. Immatures uniform yellow-green above, dull whitish below, with white eye ring and yellow wing bars.
Voice
Rich and musical with an emphatic ending, sometimes interpreted as very very pleased to meet cha!
Nesting
4 brown-spotted white eggs in a grass-and-bark nest lined with hair and rootlets, a few feet (about a meter) off the ground in a small tree or bush.
Habitat
Young, open, second-growth woodlands and scrub.
Range/Migration
Breeds from south-central Canada, east to Nova Scotia, south to east-central United States and in Appalachian Mountains. Winters in tropics.