Wilson's Warbler

Wilsonia pusilla

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 common warbler of willow thickets in the West and across Canada, the Wilson's Warbler is easily identified by its yellow underparts and black cap.

Cool Facts

• The Wilson's Warbler is found in a large diversity of environments in the winter. It is the only migrant warbler regularly found in tropical high plains (paramo).
• The Wilson's Warbler trends toward brighter, richer coloration from the eastern part of the range to the west. The Pacific coast populations have the brightest yellow, even orangish, foreheads and faces. Western-central and Alaskan birds are slightly larger than the eastern and Pacific coast populations.

Description

• Size: 10-12 cm (4-5 in)
• Wingspan: 14-17 cm (6-7 in)
• Weight: 5-10 g (0.18-0.35 ounces)

• Small songbird.
• Underparts entirely yellow.
• Back olive green.
• Face yellow.
• Plain dark wings and tail.
• Male with black cap.

• Bill blackish; upper bill darker than lower.
• Eyes dark brown.
• Legs and feet light brown.

Sex Differences

Sexes similar, but female without black cap, or with a broken one.

Immature

Similar to adult, but duller and with smaller or absent black cap.

Similar Species

• Yellow Warbler has yellow edges to wings and yellow tail spots.
• Female Hooded Warbler has white tail spots.
• Orange-crowned Warbler is more drab overall, has a proportionally shorter tail, longer, more pointed bill, and often inconspicuously streaked underparts.

Sound

A series of loud, rapid, chatter-like notes, dropping downward in pitch toward the end; not especially musical in quality. Call a soft, nasal "chip."

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Breeds across Alaska and Canada, southward to southern California, New Mexico, and very northern northeastern states.

Winter Range

Winters from Louisiana southward to Panama.

Habitat

Breeds in shrub thickets of riparian habitats, edges of beaver ponds, lakes, bogs, and overgrown clear-cuts of montane and boreal zone. Winters in tropical evergreen and deciduous forest, cloud forest, pine-oak forest, and forest edge habitat; also found in mangrove undergrowth, secondary growth, thorn-scrub, dry washes, riparian gallery forest, mixed forests, brushy fields, and plantations.

Food

Insects and occasional berries.

Behavior

Foraging

Picks insects from foliage and twigs, hovers to pick prey from leaves, and flycatches.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Bowl of vegetation, lined with grass or hair. Usually placed on ground, at base of shrub or under bunches of grass. May be placed low in shrubs.

Egg Description

Creamy white with fine reddish spots.

Clutch Size

2-7 eggs.

Condition at Hatching

Helpless with sparse brown down.

Conservation Status

No special status on federal lists, but priority species on several conservation listings of western states due to recent population declines and threats to breeding habitat. Degradation and loss of primary breeding habitat, western riparian woodlands, are likely among the leading causes of declines.

Other Names

Paruline à calotte noire (French)
Chipe coronoa negra, Reinita Gorrinegra, Reinita de Wilson, Chipe Careto, Reinita de Capucha, Chipe Coroninegro (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

Ammon, E. M., and W. M. Gilbert. 1999. Wilson?s Warbler (Wilsonia pusilla). In The Birds of North America, No. 478 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.