ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERS. Vermivora celata (Say)³⁴

Field characters.—Half size of Junco. Whole body dull greenish, tinged with yellow beneath. No wing bars or other contrasted markings of any sort (pl. 9b). Voice: Song of male a series of tinny notes, uttered rapidly and descending slightly in pitch toward end of series; call note a moderate chit.

Occurrence.—Summer visitant in small numbers locally in Upper Sonoran and Transition zones on both slopes of Sierra Nevada. Also passes along both slopes of mountains in migration. Winters in small numbers at Snelling.³⁴ Keeps to inner foliage of trees on shaded hillslopes, foraging 10 to 30 feet above ground but nesting on ground. Solitary.

---

³⁴Two subspecies of the Orange-crowned Warbler occur in the Yosemite section.

These are so much alike that they cannot be separately recognized in the field.

LUTESCENT WARBLER, Vermivora celata lutescens (Ridgway), a brightly greenish-tinged subspecies (pl. 9b), nests in summer in the Upper Sonoran and Transition zones on west slope of Sierra Nevada, as near Coulterville, and ranges to higher levels after nesting season, as up to 10,500 feet altitude on Mount Clark (August 22, 1915) and to 10,350 feet near Vogelsang Lake (August 31, 1915).

ROCKY MOUNTAIN ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER, Vermivora celata orestera Oberholser, a duller colored (less yellow tinged) subspecies, of slightly larger size, which summers in the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin, occurs also at that season sparingly around Mono Lake.

Birds of this species, but of undetermined subspecies, were seen at Snelling in mid-winter; these may have represented a third subspecies, namely, the EASTERN ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER.

---

Neither of the races of the Orange-crowned Warbler is abundant in the Yosemite section, the birds being greatly outnumbered by that closely related and more typically Sierran species, the Calaveras Warbler. We saw the Lutescent Warbler (the west-Sierran race) on a few occasions, and the other, the Rocky Mountain Orange-crown, came definitely to attention only around Mono Lake Post Office on May 24 and 26, 1916.

In Yosemite Valley we did not record the presence of Lutescent Warblers until June 8, 1915, when three fully grown juvenile birds were seen in a thicket of chokecherry bushes. They came to our attention as a result of their own curiosity concerning our close examination of the nest of a remonstrant Yellow Warbler; otherwise, these Lutescents might have escaped observation altogether. The fact that we did not see or hear adults of this species in the Valley previously suggests that these three were up-mountain migrants. Probably they had been reared at some station in the foothills where the parents were still engaged in the rearing of another brood. Later in the year other representatives of the Lutescent Warbler were encountered still higher in the mountains. At an altitude of 10,500 feet on the slopes of Mount Clark no less than six of these birds were noted on August 22, 1915; single individuals were recorded at Washburn Lake August 24, and near the foot of Vogelsang Pass on August 31 and September 2, 1915. In the western foothill country the Lutescent Warbler was encountered in spring at only two stations, near Coulterville, May 11, 1919, and at Bullion Mountain, May 26, 1915.

Mr. Joseph Mailliard (1918, p. 17) says that in 1917 "the Lutescent Warbler was first seen [by him in Yosemite Valley] September 18, after which its numbers increased slowly until the 26th, when a small wave of migration reached the valley, the eastern end of Sequoia Lane being especially popular as a feeding and resting place." It was estimated that 75 were noted on that one morning. Next day very few were to be seen. Four were noted on the 29th.

The males of these warblers (Orange-crowned and Lutescent) have on the head an orange-colored crown patch whence the common and scientific species names are derived. This crown patch, however, can rarely be seen when the bird is out of hand, and so is not serviceable as a field character. The bird's general greenish coloration, unrelieved by wing bars or tail spots, its tinny-toned song, and its rather deliberate movements for a warbler, must be depended upon for its identification out of doors.