Yellow-throated Warbler
Setophaga dominica
A slender, long-billed warbler with distinctive pattern. Look for yellow throat, black mask, and black streaks on sides. All plumages are very similar; females and immatures often show a light buffy wash on the sides. Forages like a nuthatch, often creeping along branches and hanging upside-down. Fairly common breeder in mature forests with large sycamores or pines. Winters from the southeastern U.S. to Central America and the Caribbean, often in palm trees. Listen for sweet descending song with sharper notes at the end.
Identification
In summer, male yellow-throated warblers display grey upperparts and wings, with double white wing bars. Their throats are yellow, and the remainder of their underparts are white, and are streaked with black on the flanks. Their heads are strongly patterned in black and white, with a long supercilium; the different subspecies may display yellow and white superciliums. Remiges and rectrices are black. They measure 14 cm (5.5 in) long.<p>Other plumages of these birds – females immatures and non-breeding males – resemble washed-out versions of the summer males; in particular they have a less crisply defined strong head pattern. They also have less bright yellows, and dark grey feathers instead of black ones in the body plumage. Compared to many other New World warblers, sexual dimorphism is slight.<p>The males' songs are clear, descending whistles. The calls are high sees or sharp chips.<p>Measurements:
Taxonomy
Yellow-throated warblers will occasionally hybridize with northern parulas (Setophaga americana), resulting in a hybrid species known as Sutton's warblers. Sutton's warblers lack the black streaks bordering the breast indicative of yellow-throated warblers, and have a suffused greenish-yellow wash on their back, which is also not indicative of yellow-throated warblers. The Sutton's warbler was first discovered in 1940 in West Virginia.
- Scientific name
- Setophaga dominica
- Authority
- (Linnaeus, 1766)
- Order
- Passeriformes
- Family
- Parulidae
- Genus
- Setophaga
Range and habitat
These birds breed in southeastern North America, and their breeding ranges extend from southern Pennsylvania and northern Missouri, to the Gulf of Mexico. One subspecies, from northwest Florida, is resident all year round. The other populations of this species are migratory, wintering at the Gulf Coast, eastern Central America, and the Caribbean. Vagrant wintering birds are sometimes seen in northernmost South America. <p>In the United States, the yellow-throated warbler's range differs from typical Setophaga warblers because they have a more expansive resident population in the South than other Setophaga warblers. Moreover, their breeding range is more southerly, and their wintering range more is northerly, than the other warblers in the genus. According to McKay et al., "[t]he near absence of the species from the lower Piedmont of the Carolinas and Georgia ... presents a puzzle."<p>The yellow-throated warbler is a woodland species with a preference for coniferous or swamp tree species, in which it preferably nests.
- Breeding range
- NA : e, se USA
- Non-breeding range
- MA, Greater Antilles
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Conservation
- Population trend
- rising
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
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