Where timberline marks the northern edge of the OLIVEBACK'S wandering is still largely a trackless wilderness touched for a brief season with the beauty of birds and flowers. However, here in this northland where billows of sombre spruces and firs are broken only by innumerable lakes and streams and outcroppings of cold gray rock, cheerful songs of Olivebacks may be heard at their best, often mingling with those of the Hermits who occupy the same region.
The quiet of evening is their favorite time for most extended vocal efforts altho they often sing during the day while Hermits are apt to be silent save in the early morning hours and toward dusk.
Perched high in trees, whence they may spy danger and dive into underbrush safety, they pour forth successive bursts of rippling melody. Their song lacks the variety, deliberation and spirituality of the Hermit's but has an irresistible swing which fairly eclipses that Thrush's best efforts.
They are much shyer and more restless than are the Hermits altho they carelessly place their nests five or six feet from the ground (commonly in small spruces) where they are very conspicuous. The sitting bird crouches motionless in the nest if surprised but is generally able to slip away unobserved and fit about silently with its mate in the adjacent bushes, sometimes uttering a liquid puk of alarm. —Dwight.
Northern North America. Breeds in lower Hudsonian and Canadian zones from latitude 60 on east to Arctic Circle on west, south to Kenai peninsula, eastern Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Michigan, New York, Newfoundland, and in mountains from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Winters to Argentine, South America.