Blue-winged Warbler

Overview

Blue-winged Warbler: Medium-sized warbler with olive-green upperparts and yellow underparts. The head is yellow with thin black eye line and olive-green nape. Wings are dark gray with two white bars. When its range overlaps with the Golden-winged Warrbler, it often interbreeds with or displaces it.

Range and Habitat

Blue-winged Warbler: Breeds from Nebraska, central Iowa, southern Wisconsin, southern Ontario, and central New England south through east-central and Atlantic coast states to northern Georgia. Winters in the tropics. Prefers abandoned fields and pastures; forest clearings and edges with clumps of catbrier, blackberry, and various bushes and young trees.

INTERESTING FACTS

Suburban expansion of the human population is depleting habitat for this species. For example, nine former breeding sites in northeastern Ohio have been converted to housing developments; this species no longer breeds there.

The Blue-winged Warbler hybridizes with the Golden-winged Warbler.
Two basic hybrid types occur - the Brewster's Warbler with yellow head and throat, white belly, and white wing bars and the less common Lawrence's Warbler with a yellow crown and belly; black throat and eye patch; and whitish wingbars.
A group of warblers has many collective nouns, including a "bouquet", "confusion", "fall", and "wrench" of warblers.

The Blue-winged Warbler has a very large range, estimated at 1,800,000 square kilometers. The bird is primarily found in North America and Bahamas, as well as Central and South America, but has been seen in Jamaica as well as Saint Pierre and Miquelon. It prefers temperate grassland and shrubland climates and has an estimated global population of 390,000 individuals. The species is not believed to be nearing the population decline thresholds for inclusion to the IUCN Red List. The current evaluation status of the Blue-winged Warbler is Least Concern.