Life Histories of North American Wood Warblers, Part One and Part Two. Arthur Cleveland Bent
St. Louis, July 4. Michoacán—Tancitaro, August 7. Guatemala—Huehuetenango, August 14. Honduras—Cantarranas, August 7. Costa Rica—San José, August 20. Panamá—Tapia, Canal Zone, August 24. Colombia—Bonda, Santa Marta region, August 21. Ecuador—Pastaza Valley, October 17. Venezuela—Estado Carabobo Las Trincheras, October 9.
Banding.—A single banding recovery is of considerable interest: A black-and-white banded at Manchester, N. H., on August 31, 1944, was found on March 17, 1945, at Friendship P. O., Westmoreland, Jamaica.
Casual records.—This warbler is casual in migration or winters in Bermuda, having been recorded in six different years from October to May.
At Tingwall, Shetland Islands, north of Scotland one was picked up on November 28, 1936. This is almost as far north as the northernmost record of occurrence in North America and later than it is normally found in the United States.
A specimen was collected near Pullman, Wash., on August 15, 1948, the first record for the State.
Egg dates.—Massachusetts: 31 records, May 18 to June 14; 17 records, May 25 to June 3, indicating the height of the season.
New Jersey: 7 records, May 18 to June 8.
Tennessee: 3 records, May 1 to 17.
North Carolina: 6 records, April 20 to 28.
West Virginia: 7 records, May 6 to 29 (Harris).
PROTONOTARIA CITREA (Boddaert)
PROTHONOTARY WARBLER
Plates 4-6
HABITS
I do not like the above name for the golden swamp warbler. The scientific name Protonotaria, and evidently the common name, were apparently both derived from the Latin protonotarius, meaning first notary or scribe. I sympathize with Bagg and Eliot (1937), who exclaimed:
What a name to saddle on the Golden Swamp-bird! Wrongly compounded in the first place, wrongly spelled, wrongly pronounced! We understand that Protonotarius is the title of papal officials whose robes are bright yellow, but why say “First Notary” in mixed Greek and Latin, instead of Primonotarius? Proto is Greek for first, as in prototype. Why and when did it come to be misspelled Protho? Both Wilson and Audubon wrote Protonotary Warbler, a name seemingly first given to the bird by Louisiana Creoles. Both etymology and sense call for stress on the third syllable, yet one most often hears the stress laid on the second. Here, certainly, is a bothersome name fit only to be eschewed!
The scientific name cannot be changed under the rules of nomenclature, but a change in the common name would seem desirable. However, the name does not make the bird or detract from its charm and beauty. It will still continue to thrill with delight the wanderer in its swampy haunts.
The center of abundance of the prothonotary warbler as a breeding bird in this country is in the valleys of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, notably the Ohio, the Wabash, and the Illinois Rivers. Its summer range extends eastward into Indiana and Ohio, northward into southern Ontario, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, and westward into Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and eastern Texas—wherever it can find suitable breeding grounds.
It also breeds in the Atlantic Coast States from Virginia to Florida.
It is essentially a bird of the damp and swampy river bottoms and low-lying woods, which are flooded at times and in which woodland pools have been left by the receding water. Perhaps this warbler abounds more than anywhere else in the valley of the lower Wabash, where William Brewster (1878) found it to be—
one of the most abundant and characteristic species. Along the shores of the rivers and creeks generally, wherever the black willow (Salix niger) grew, a few pairs were sure to be found. Among the button-bushes (Cephalanthus occidentalis) that fringed the margin of the peculiar long narrow ponds scattered at frequent intervals over the heavily timbered bottoms of the Wabash and White Rivers, they also occurred more or less numerously. Potoka Creek, a winding, sluggish stream, thickly fringed with willows, was also a favorite resort; but the grand rendezvous of the species seemed to be about the shores of certain secluded ponds lying in what is known as the Little Cypress Swamp. Here they congregated in astonishing numbers, and early in May were breeding almost in colonies. In the region above indicated two things were found to be essential to their presence, namely, an abundance of willows and the immediate proximity of water. * * * So marked was this preference, that the song of the male heard from the woods indicated to us as surely the proximity of some river, pond, or flooded swamp, as did the croaking of frogs or the peep of the Hylas.
Dr. Chapman (1907) writes of this bird in its haunts:
The charm of its haunts and the beauty of its plumage combine to render the Prothonotary Warbler among the most attractive members of the family. I clearly recall my own first meeting with it in the Suwanee River region of Florida. Quietly paddling my canoe along one of the many enchanting, and, I was then quite willing to believe, enchanted streams which flowed through the forests into the main river, this glowing bit of bird-life gleamed like a torch in the night. No neck-straining examination with opera-glass pointed to the tree-tops, was required to determine his identity, as, flitting from bush to bush along the river’s bank, his golden plumes were displayed as though for my special benefit.
Dr. Lawrence H. Walkinshaw (1938) says that the golden swamp warbler “nests rather abundantly along southwestern-Michigan rivers. * * * Winding streams, bordered densely with oak, maple, ash, and elm, shallow ponds with groups of protruding willows and flooded, heavily shaded bottom-lands are favorite nesting habitats for the Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea). Such habitats occur along the banks of the Kalamazoo River and its tributary the Battle Creek River in Calhoun County, Michigan.”
Territory.—The males arrive on the breeding grounds a few days or a week before the females come and immediately try to establish their territories, select the nesting sites, and even build nests. Dr. Walkinshaw (1941) writes:
The Prothonotary Warbler is a very strongly territorial species. When a male takes possession of a certain area he continually drives off all opponents if he is able. At certain areas in Michigan I have watched these birds battle intermittently for two or three days, usually for the same bird house, one male finally taking possession. In addition I have observed them to drive off House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon), Black-capped Chickadees (Penthestes atricapillus) and Yellow Warblers (Dendroica aestiva). * * * The male Prothonotary Warbler selects the territory, selecting the nesting site before he becomes mated for the first nest, but thereafter both birds inspect the new nest sites.
On observations made near Knoxville, Tenn., Henry Meyer and Ruth Reed Nevius (1943) found that—
three males established territories. Male I arrived April 14. By the next day he was singing on an area 550 feet long and for the most part not more than 200 feet wide. It included three kinds of habitats: (a) a grassy terrace on which several nesting boxes were located, (b) river banks densely covered with small trees and bushes, and (c) a small open orchard which constituted the connecting link between the terrace and the river bank. Male II arrived on April 18 and occupied a narrow territory along a brook confined by wooded slopes and which contained two lotus ponds. The area was about 400 feet long and 100 feet wide. A nesting box was on a stake above one of the ponds. Male III appeared May 5 in the terraced area being claimed by Male I. During the day, the 2 males sang energetically and flew often only a few inches apart. Male I maintained his territory and Male III disappeared.
There were a number of nesting boxes on the area that the males investigated, carrying nesting material into some of them while they were waiting for the females to arrive. The mate of the first male came on April 20, and—
on this day this pair communicated by their full call-note. Twice the male was seen pursuing the female rapidly in a small semi-circle and pausing, called a soft, full note which was later heard only when the two sexes were together.
The mate of Male II came April 22, four days after the latter’s arrival.
Combat with other species found