Blue-winged Warbler

Vermivora pinusOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Wood Warblers (Parulidae)

General

Blue-winged Warbler: Medium-sized warbler with olive-green upperparts and yellow underparts. Head is yellow with thin black eye line and olive-green nape. Wings are dark gray with two white bars. Female has dull olive-green nape and crown.

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. Spends winters in the tropics. Preferred habitats include abandoned fields and pastures grown up to saplings; forest clearings and edges with clumps of catbrier, blackberry, and various bushes and young trees.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"beee-buzzz"

Interesting Facts

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.

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.

A group of warblers has many collective nouns, including a "bouquet", "confusion", "fall", and "wrench" of warblers.

Author

Gary Owen Dick

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Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Blue-winged Warbler

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.

● Song: "beee-buzzz"

● Foraging & Feeding: Blue-winged Warbler: Diet consists of insects and spiders; forages in trees and shrubs.

● Breeding & nesting: Blue-winged Warbler: Four to seven brown and gray flecked white eggs are laid in a grass-lined cup of dead leaves and fibers, and built on or very near the ground in thick undergrowth. Incubation ranges from 10 to 12 days and is carried out by the female.

● Similar species: Blue-winged Warbler: Occasionally hybridizes with Golden-winged Warbler to produce offspring with characteristics of both parents. Some have mostly white underparts (Brewster's Warbler), while some have the yellow plumage of the Blue-winged, but the dark throat of the Golden-winged (Lawrence's Warbler).

Flight Pattern

Weak fluttering flights of short duration.

● Range & 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. Spends winters in the tropics. Preferred habitats include abandoned fields and pastures grown up to saplings; forest clearings and edges with clumps of catbrier, blackberry, and various bushes and young trees.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^PopulationUncommon to fairly common

^MigrationMigratory

^Weight0.3 Ounces

Field Guide to Birds of North America