Black-throated Blue Warbler

Dendroica caerulescens

Order PASSERIFORMES - Family PARULIDAE

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1. Cool Facts
2. Description
3. Similar Species
4. Sound
5. Range
6. Habitat
7. Food
8. Behavior
9. Reproduction
10. Conservation Status
11. Other Names

A bird of the deep forest, the Black-throated Blue Warbler breeds in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. On migration to its Caribbean wintering grounds it can be seen in a variety of habitats, including parks and gardens.

Cool Facts

• The sexes of the Black-throated Blue Warbler look so different that they were originally described as two different species.

• On the wintering grounds the sexes use slightly different habitats. The male is most common in forest at lower to mid-elevations, while the female uses shrubbier habitat at higher elevations.

Description

• Size: 11-13 cm (4-5 in)
• Wingspan: 17-20 cm (7-8 in)
• Weight: 8-12 g (0.28-0.42 ounces)

• Small songbird.
• Short, thin bill.
• Small white spot on edge of folded wing.
• Male deep slate blue above with black face, throat, and flanks.
• Female dull and nondescript.

• White spots in tail.
• Legs dark.
• Eyes dark.

Sex Differences

Male dark blue on back with black face, throat, and sides. Female dull greenish gray with light underparts and a weak, cream-colored eyestripe.

Male

Back, tail, and top of head blue-gray. Face and throat black. Black extending in line down sides to flanks. White below. Base of primaries white, showing as a large white patch in flight, but a small white spot near the edge of the wing when folded. Outer tail feathers with large white spots and black tips.

Female

Tail, wings, back, and head grayish olive-green. Yellowish to cream white stripe above eye. Darkish spot in front of eye extending to ear feathers. Lower eyelid white. Underside whitish to yellowish. White spot at base of primaries. Indistinct pale spot on outer tail feathers.

Immature

Similar to adult. Back and head feathers of male edged with green, white of undersides tinged yellow, and some white tips to black feathers of throat. Female like adult, but more yellowish and may be without white spot on wing.

Similar Species

• Male unmistakable.
• Female resembles fall Tennessee Warbler and Orange-crowned Warbler, but those species lack the white wing spot. Black-throated Blue has a darker cheek.

Sound

Song a series of three to seven buzzy notes, with the last slurred upward, "zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zee."

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Breeds from southwestern Ontario and northeastern Minnesota eastward to Nova Scotia, southward through New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, and in mountains southward to northern Georgia.

Winter Range

Winters in the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the Caribbean coast of Yucatan to Honduras.

Habitat

• Breeds in mature deciduous and mixed coniferous-deciduous woodlands with a thick understory, often in hilly or mountainous terrain.
• Winters in dense tropical forests.
• On migration, found in variety of habitats, including forest, forest edges, parks, and gardens.

Food

Insects and some small fruits.

Behavior

Foraging

Forages mostly in lower to mid-levels of forest, taking insects mostly from the underside of leaves.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Nest an open cup of strips of bark, held together with spider web and saliva. Places in fork of low shrub.

Egg Description

Creamy white with dark speckles concentrated at the large end.

Clutch Size

Usually 4 eggs. Range: 2-5.

Condition at Hatching

Helpless with tufts of down.

Conservation Status

Probably decreased markedly with destruction of eastern forests in 17th and 18th centuries. With the beginning of abandonment of farms in New England in the late 19th and 20th centuries, populations rebounded. Currently populations seem stable.

Other Names

Paruline bleue à gorge noire (French)
Reinita azul negra (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

Holmes, R. T. 1994. Black-throated Blue Warbler (Dendroica caerulescens). In The Birds of North America, No. 87 (A. Poole, and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.