40 Fun Facts About Warblers

Which of North America's warblers flies nonstop over the Atlantic for up to three days each autumn?

The blackpoll warbler nearly doubles its body mass before leaving, then crosses about 2,500 km of open water to reach South America or the Greater Antilles.

Rare Kirtland's warblers of the Great Lakes nest almost only among young stands of which tree?

Jack pine suits Kirtland's warbler only while the trees are young and dense, a habitat once renewed by wildfire and now made by harvesting old stands and planting seedlings.

Which songbird of the warbler family builds a domed nest with a side entrance on the forest floor?

The ovenbird is named for that nest, known as the "oven", which is woven from vegetation. Nesting on the ground exposes its young to snakes, red squirrels and chipmunks.

Which brood parasite's eggs do yellow warblers often bury under a fresh layer of nesting material?

The brown-headed cowbird regularly lays in yellow warbler nests. A warbler that spots the intruder's egg usually gives up its own eggs too and lays a replacement clutch.

Which crop, when grown under a canopy of shade trees, gives wintering warblers valuable habitat?

Coffee grown the traditional way under shade gives farms in Chiapas, Mexico, a bird richness rivaled only by the region's natural forest, while unshaded fields hold far fewer species.

The endangered golden-cheeked warbler breeds in juniper-oak woodland found in only which US state?

Texas is the only place the golden-cheeked warbler nests, in the central part of the state, because it depends on fine strips of Ashe juniper bark to build its nest.

Which of the wood-warblers creeps up and down tree trunks like a nuthatch, probing bark for food?

The black-and-white warbler hunts insects and spiders on trunks and limbs, a habit that sets it apart from most wood-warblers, and it is the only species in its genus, Mniotilta.

Which wetland-loving bird of the warbler family is recognized by the male's black face mask?

The common yellowthroat was once nicknamed the "yellow bandit" for that mask, which females lack and young males only grow in fully by their first spring.

The northern parula often hides its nest inside hanging clumps of which plant of southern swamps?

Spanish moss is hollowed out by the female, who then fills the pocket with plant fibers and animal hair. Elsewhere the birds nest in clumps of beard lichen instead.

What is the birders' term for severe weather forcing exhausted migrating warblers to land en masse?

A fallout is uncommon because it takes a chance run of high winds or rain to ground tired migrants, which is why birders prize the crowds of birds resting in one spot.

A sighting of which swamp bird on the Potomac helped link Alger Hiss to Whittaker Chambers?

The prothonotary warbler came up when Chambers testified that Hiss had bragged of seeing one. Hiss later confirmed the sighting, convincing many on the committee that the two men knew each other.

Which abundant songbird is the only one of the warblers that can digest waxy wax-myrtle berries?

The yellow-rumped warbler's eastern form is called the myrtle warbler after those berries, which it turns to when bugs are scarce. Birders nickname the species "butter butt".

The "start" in the name American redstart comes from an old word for which part of a bird?

Tail is the old meaning of "start", and the male American redstart flashes the bright patches on its tail to startle prey out of the underbrush.

Which of the warblers, a southern swamp bird that wintered in Cuba, was declared extinct in 2023?

Bachman's warbler was last seen beyond dispute in the 1960s. A contested 1988 report kept hope alive until US officials struck it from the endangered list as extinct.

The wood warbler, a songbird of Europe's beech and oak woods, winters in which part of the world?

Tropical Africa takes in the entire population each winter. The bird's Latin species name, sibilatrix, means a female whistler.

Warblers belong to which order of perching birds, the largest order and home to most bird species?

Passeriformes takes its name from the Latin for sparrow and holds some 6,500 species, about 60% of all birds, in more than 140 families.

Most members of the New World warbler family feed mainly on which kind of food?

Insects are the staple for most of the family, which likely arose in northern Central America, where the greatest number of species is still found.

The breeding male Blackburnian warbler is best known for a throat of which vivid color?

Orange so bright it is described as flaming marks the male's throat. The bird's name honors Anna Blackburne, an English botanist.

Which songbird, long ranked the largest wood-warbler, was moved to a family of its own in 2017?

The yellow-breasted chat now sits alone in the family Icteriidae, and studies point to the New World blackbirds as its closest living relatives.

By the mid-1900s, Kirtland's warblers bred only in a small part of which US state?

Michigan held the entire breeding range until numbers grew; pairs have since nested in Wisconsin and southern Ontario. The first nest ever found was by the Au Sable River in 1903.

The Cape May warbler is named for a cape in which US state, where the first specimen was collected?

New Jersey gave the bird its name on the strength of a single specimen, yet the species was not recorded at Cape May again for another 100 years.

Linnaeus first classed the northern parula, namesake of the family Parulidae, as which kind of bird?

A tit is what he called it in 1758, as Parus americanus. The genus name was later modified to Parulus and then Parula, which gave the family its name.

Which pioneer of American ornithology named both the Tennessee warbler and the Connecticut warbler?

Alexander Wilson named each for the place a specimen turned up, though the first bird only passes through Tennessee on migration and the second rarely visits Connecticut.

Brewster's warbler and Lawrence's warbler are not true species but which kind of bird?

Hybrids of golden-winged and blue-winged warblers take these two forms: Brewster's, gray above, is the more common, and Lawrence's, greenish-yellow above, is the rarer.

A band of dark streaks across the chest gives which of the warblers the nickname "necklaced"?

The Canada warbler flies by night on its way to winter in northern South America, where it forages in mixed flocks with other birds.

Tennessee warbler numbers rise and fall with outbreaks of which forest caterpillar, a favorite food?

Spruce budworm is the Tennessee warbler's preferred food, and the bay-breasted warbler also feeds heavily on the caterpillar in the breeding season.

Gilbert White was among the first to tell chiffchaff, willow warbler and wood warbler apart by what?

Their songs gave the three look-alikes away, as White set out in 1789 in The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.

The Dartford warbler was named from specimens taken near Dartford, a town in which English county?

Kent's Bexley Heath supplied the two specimens. The species almost died out in Britain in the severe winter of 1962–63, when only a handful of pairs were left.

Which Old World warbler's rich, varied voice earned it the nickname "mock nightingale"?

The Eurasian blackcap has also been called the country nightingale, and it occasionally mimics other birds, including the nightingale itself.

Which genus, named "moth eater" in Greek, absorbed most of the warblers once placed in Dendroica?

Setophaga won out because the name dates from 1827 and so takes priority over Dendroica, published in 1842; 29 species changed genus as a result.

Robert MacArthur's study of warblers feeding at different heights in conifers showed which idea?

Niche partitioning lets similar species share one habitat: in work published in 1958, MacArthur watched five warblers feed in different parts of the same trees in Maine and Vermont.

The Cape May warbler is unique among warblers for which feature that helps it sip nectar in winter?

A tubular tongue lets the Cape May warbler take berry juice as well as nectar, and the species can also lay the largest clutch of any New World warbler.

The Arctic warbler breeds as far east as Alaska, yet its entire population winters in which region?

Southeast Asia takes in the whole population, Alaskan breeders included, because the species is an Old World warbler whose main range runs across the northern Palearctic.

Which bird, the smallest of the New World warblers, nests in holes in cactus and desert trees?

Lucy's warbler can nest in the driest vegetated stretches of the Sonoran Desert, and it is named for Lucy Hunter Baird, daughter of ornithologist Spencer Fullerton Baird.

Virginia's warbler honors not the state but the wife of its discoverer, who held which job?

An army surgeon found the bird at Fort Burgwin, New Mexico, in 1858 and asked that it carry the name of his wife, Virginia Anderson.

Which bird of the warbler family returns to breed almost two months before most warblers?

The Louisiana waterthrush is also among the first to leave, with some gone by July and almost all departed by late August.

Which island nation's namesake warbler was down to just 26 birds on Cousin Island in 1968?

Seychelles numbers have since passed 2,500 birds spread over five islands, helped by planting Morinda trees that improved the warbler's foraging.

Which bird of Arizona and Mexico left the wood-warblers as the sole member of Peucedramidae?

The olive warbler looks so much like a wood-warbler that it was once placed in Dendroica, but DNA studies suggest it split off early from its relatives, earning it a family of its own.

Phylloscopus, the genus of the chiffchaff and willow warbler, has a Greek name meaning what?

Leaf seeker fits a genus of about 80 small Old World woodland warblers, most of them greenish or brown above and yellowish, white or buff below.

Kirtland's warbler honors a naturalist whose farm yielded a key specimen near which Ohio city?

Cleveland was home to Jared Potter Kirtland, and the bird shot on his farm in May 1851, a young male, became the specimen that defines the species.