Overview

Golden-winged Warbler: Small warbler with gray upperparts and white underparts. Face is white with black mask and throat, and head has a yellow crown. Wings are gray with large yellow patches. Its flight is weak and fluttering, alternates rapid wing beats with periods of wings drawn to its sides.

Golden-winged Warbler: Breeds from southern Manitoba and New Hampshire south to New Jersey and Iowa, and in the mountains to Georgia. Spends winters from southern Mexico to northern South America. Preferred habitats include abandoned fields and pastures grown to saplings.

Listen to Call

Golden-winged Warbler Voice

Voice Text

"beee-bzz-bzz-bzz"

• The Golden-winged Warbler benefited from the extensive deforestation of the last several centuries, especially as farms were abandoned in the 20th century. Current reforestation is reducing available breeding habitat.
• They hybridize extensively with the Blue-winged Warbler, giving rise to the distinctly plumaged "Brewster's" and "Lawrence's" warblers. Backcrosses of hybrids to pure parental types result in many intermediate-appearing birds.
• Hybrids do not sing intermediate songs but sing either normal Blue-winged Warbler or Golden-winged Warbler songs. Some birds sing both. Occasionally pure-looking parental types sing the "wrong" song.
• A group of warblers has many collective nouns, including a "bouquet", "confusion", "fall", and "wrench" of warblers.

• Orange-crowned Warbler
• Northern Parula
• Blue-winged Warbler
• Prothonotary Warbler
• Yellow Warbler
• Bachman's Warbler

Wood Warblers (Parulidae)

ORDER

The wood warblers are one of the one hundred eighteen families of birds in the order PASSERIFORMES (pronounced pas-ser-i-FOR-meez); a large taxonomic order that includes other small perching birds such as the vireos, the white-eyes, and the tanagers.

FAMILY TAXONOMY

The Wood warblers, or Parulidae (pronounced pah-ROO-luh-dee), are a large family of one hundred and twenty-two species in twenty-six genera that only occur in North and South America.

NORTH AMERICA

North America has ninety species of wood warblers in twenty-six genera; included in this family are the yellowthroats, a seemingly dizzying array of warblers, and the waterthrushes.

KNOWN FOR

The wood warblers are known for their colorful plumages – the Blackburnian Warbler being one of the most striking members of this family with its deep orange-red throat that contrasts with its handsome black and white plumage. However while many species are known for their beautiful breeding plumage colors, they are also known to bird watchers as being extremely challenging to identify when in the fall they revert to their drab tan, olive, and pale colored plumages.

PHYSICAL

Like several other Passerines, the wood warblers are small birds with medium length tails, medium length legs and strong feet suited to perching. They have short to longish wings (in migratory species), and medium length, thin, pointed bills.

COLORATION

Members of the Parulidae come in a variety of colors. Different shades of yellow and olive occur in many species, including the dull, brown, streaked plumages of females and immatures. In addition to having bright yellow in their plumages, males in bright breeding plumage can show orange, blue, grays, and handsome patterns of black and white.

GEOGRAPHIC HABITAT

The wood warblers occur throughout North America except for the far northern tundra. The many species of this family have evolved to fill a wide variety of niches including marshes (yellowthroats) to tree trunks (the Black-and-white Warbler), and spruce forests (the Cape May Warbler). Several species can reside in the same area, yet avoid competition by occupying slightly different habitats or feeding in different ways.

MIGRATION

Most species of wood warblers are long distance migrants to Central and South America.

HABITS

Members of the Parulidae are not colonial nesters but often occur in mixed flocks with other species after the breeding season. They forage in a variety of ways for invertebrates, small fruits, and nectar. While the waterthrushes forage on the ground in streams and wetlands, and the Black-and-white Warbler creeps along tree trunks, most wood warblers glean the vegetation of trees and bushes and make short sallies for their insect prey.

CONSERVATION

The Kirtland’s Warbler is an endangered species restricted to a very specific type of habitat mostly found in Michigan; Jack Pine forests. Its habitat is managed for this species in a few national forests by ensuring that there are Jack Pine stands of the age and composition this species requires. Brown-headed Cowbird populations are also controlled on its breeding grounds.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Bachman’s Warbler is an enigmatic species considered to be extinct by most authorities although slim hopes for its continued existence are kept alive by a few possible sightings over the last thirty years. Historically occurring in the southeastern United States, this little known species is thought to have been dependent upon canebrakes on its breeding and wintering grounds in Cuba. Although the reasons for its decline are unknown, destruction of these canebrakes is the most likely reason for its demise.

Author

Gary Owen Dick

Artist

Imran Kahn