Here was a revelation! How sighting of magnolia warbler lit up the universe for birder William Brewster

Making the headlines - how the twitch was reported in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph

The magnolia warbler that turned up earlier this week at St Govan's Head,  Pembrokeshire, has delighted the hundreds of birders who have seen it. It was exactly the same thrill that was experienced by American birder William Brewster when he encountered it for the first time. His exultation was later described in The Warblers of North America  (published in 1917) by Frank Chapman as outlined below.  

In this day of numerous bird manuals, book knowledge of a bird usually precedes our actual meeting with the species in life, and we are more or less prepared for the encounter.

But before the day of these publications, the embryo ornithologist was sometimes thrilled by the 'discovery' of birds which, as far as he was aware, no one had ever seen before.

William Brewster's  monograph of the magnolia warbler contains a description of such an experience which we are sure will appeal to every bird lover whether or not it has been his good fortune to begin his study of birds in a similarly memorable manner.

Mr. Brewster writes: "Entering a grove of thickly growing young spruces, I sat down to rest on a mossy log. 

"I had been there but a short time when I became conscious of faint sounds in the trees above and around me, chirpings, twitterings and occasionally a modest little effort at song. 

"Watching attentively, I soon spied a movement among the branches, and a tiny bird hopped out into the light, presenting a bright yellow breast and throat for just a moment before flying into the next tree. 

"Here was a revelation! 

"I already knew a few of the most familiar birds, the robin, the bluebird, the sparrow, the oriole, and some others, but it had never occurred to me that dark forests like these might be tenanted by such delicate and beautiful forms. 

"Surely, only the tropics could boast such gems!"

This was a time when the opera-glass had not supplanted the gun and "with enthusiasm now fairly aroused and animated with the spirit of the explorer" the young ornithologist went at once to work to investigate as Brewster goes on to describe.

"In the course of an hour or two, my ammunition was nearly exhausted, and quite a line of poor, lifeless, mutilated little birds lay along the old log. 

"Scarcely any two of my specimens were alike, and as I contemplated in amazement their varied forms and colouring, I felt like the discoverer of a new world, and doubted whether human eyes had ever beheld the like before.

"I can recall with sufficient distinctness for identification but a single bird of them all, a fine adult male black-and-yellow warbler (as the magnolia warbler was then called) which at the time I considered the handsomest.

"I still think it cannot be surpassed in beauty by any New England representative of the family."

Later, in the same paper, Brewster states that, as a spring migrant in eastern Massachusetts, the magnolia warbler is abundant,  frequenting willow thickets near streams, ponds, and other damp places. 

He notes: "It is also not unusual to find many in the upland woods, especially where young pines or other evergreens grow thickly." 

In the autumn, he adds, it is less common and its haunts are then somewhat different from those which it affects during its northward journey. 

"We now find it most commonly on hillsides, among scrub-oaks and scattered birches and in company with such birds as the yellow-rumped warbler and the blackpoll warbler".                                            

Like a 'gem from the Tropics' - colour plate from the book (below) by Frank Chapman