General

Fan-tailed Warbler: Small, secretive warbler with dark gray upperparts, red-brown underparts, and white-tipped tail. Head has yellow throat and patches. Juvenile is dark gray with two thin white wing-bars and pale yellow vent. Very rare visitor to desert canyons in southeastern Arizona.

Range and Habitat

Fan-tailed Warbler: Found in Mexico south to Nicaragua, with six records from southeast Arizona. Preferred habitats include dry or low rocky stream bottoms.

Breeding and Nesting

Fan-tailed Warbler: Two to four white eggs, flecked with gray and red brown, are laid in a domed nest made of plant stems, fibers, and grass, lined with finer materials, and sheltered by grass, a bank, or a boulder. Incubation ranges from 12 to14 days and is carried out by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Fan-tailed Warbler: Eats insects, spiders, berries, and seeds; follows army ant swarms in the tropics. Forages by walking or shuffling around on the ground; also hawks insects from the ground.

Readily Eats

Sugar Water, Fruit, Nut Pieces

Vocalization

Fan-tailed Warbler: Song is a bold pleasing melody of slurred notes, beginning weakly and building to a strong ending with an up- and down-slurred note at the end, "suwee-suwee-suwee, chu." Call is a sharp, high "schree."

Similar Species

Fan-tailed Warbler: None in North America