Blackburnian Warbler

Dendroica fusca

Order PASSERIFORMES - Family PARULIDAE

Menu

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 coniferous forests of the Northeast, the Blackburnian Warbler is breathtaking in its brilliant orange-and-black breeding plumage.

Cool Facts

• No other North American warbler has an orange throat.

• The Blackburnian Warbler is territorial on its breeding grounds and solitary in the winter. It forms flocks only during migration.

• Although the Blackburnian Warbler does not associate with other birds while it is nesting, it will join foraging flocks of chickadees, kinglets, and nuthatches after the young fledge. The warbler will follow the mixed flock with its begging young. The begging of the warbler chicks can even attract chickadees.

Description

• Size: 11-12 cm (4-5 in)
• Wingspan: 20-21 cm (8-8 in)
• Weight: 9-13 g (0.32-0.46 ounces)

• Small songbird.
• Brilliant orange throat.
• Orange yellow eyebrow.
• Small black face mask.
• Broad white wingbars.

• Dark back with white stripes.
• Belly and undertail white.
• Legs black.
• Light crescent under eye.
• White sides to tail.
• Streaks on side of chest and flanks.

Sex Differences

Male brightly colored, female similarly patterned but duller.

Male

Breeding (Alternate) Plumage: Throat and upper breast deep orange. Sides of neck, eyestripe, line on forecrown, and eye arc yellow-orange. Face patch, crown, and back black. Lower breast yellowish with black streaks on sides. Belly white or yellowish. Wings black with broad white wingbars that run together into a white patch. Back black with two creamy white lines. Tail black with large white patches in outer tail feathers.
Nonbreeding (Basic) Plumage: Similar to breeding, but oranges less intense and more yellow. Olive edges to black back feathers. Wingbars more distinct and less of a continuous white patch.

Female

Breeding (Alternate) Plumage: Throat, upper breast, eyestripe, forecrown stripe, and sides of neck orange yellow. Crown, face patch, and flank streaks greenish gray. Back gray with dark and light streaking. Two broad white wingbars.
Nonbreeding (Basic) Plumage: Similar to breeding, but more olive-brown above and with less white in the wing.

Immature

Immature similar to adult female. Immature male with more yellow throat, some black in eyeline, and more yellow onto flanks. Immature female much paler, with yellowish throat and eyeline, blurry streaking on sides, grayer face patch and crown, and narrower wingbars.

Similar Species

• Adult male distinctive; American Redstart is only other warbler that is orange and black, and it has an all-black face and throat.
• Pale first year female resembles female Cerulean Warbler, but Cerulean has an unstriped back and less distinct triangular face patch.
• Immature female Townsend's Warbler similar, but lacks light streaking on back.

Sound

Song thin and very high pitched, "zip, zip, zip, zip, titititi, tseeee," and "teetsa, teetsa, teetsa, teetsa."

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Breeds from Saskatchewan to western Newfoundland, southward to northern Minnesota and Massachusetts, and in mountains southward to northern Georgia.

Winter Range

Winters in southern Central America and northern South America, southward in the Andes.

Habitat

• Breeds in mature coniferous and mixed coniferous/deciduous forests.
• Winters in montane forests.

Food

Insects and spiders.

Behavior

Foraging

Gleans insects on small branches high in tree.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Open cup of twigs, bark, plant fibers, and rootlets held to branch with spider web. Lined with lichens, moss, hair, and dead pine needles. Placed near tip of branch of conifer.

Egg Description

White or greenish white with brown spots and blotches.

Clutch Size

3-5 eggs.

Condition at Hatching

Helpless with tufts of down.

Conservation Status

Populations stable.

Other Names

Paruline à gorge orangée (French)
Verdín pasajero (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

1. Dunn, J. L., and Garrett, K. L. 1997. A Field Guide to Warblers of North America. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.
2. Morse, D. H. 1994. Blackburnian Warbler (Dendroica fusca). In The Birds of North America, No. 102 (A. Poole, and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.