Tennessee warbler

Tennessee warbler
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Passeriformes
Family:	Parulidae
Genus:	Oreothlypis
Species:	O. peregrina
Binomial name
Oreothlypis peregrina (Wilson, 1811)
Range of O. peregrina      Breeding range     Wintering range
Synonyms
Helmintophila peregrina Leiothlypis peregrina Vermivora peregrina

The Tennessee warbler (Oreothlypis peregrina) is a New World warbler that breeds in eastern North America and winters in southern Central America and northern South America.

Description

The Tennessee warbler is 11.5 cm (4.5 in) long, has a 19.69 cm (7.75 in) wingspan, and weighs roughly 10 g (0.35 oz). The breeding male has olive back, shoulders, rump and vent. The flight feathers are brownish-black. It has a slate gray neck, crown and eyeline. The underside is a gray-white. The female is similar to the male, but is much duller and has a greener tinge to the underside. The Tennessee warbler has long wings, short tail and a thin, pointy bill. Juveniles and first-year birds are quite similar to the female.

Tennessee warblers resemble female black-throated blue warblers. The only difference is that the black-throated blue has a darker cheek and two white wing spots.

This bird can be confused with the red-eyed vireo, which is larger, moves more deliberately and sings almost constantly. The orange-crowned warbler can also look similar, but lacks the white eyebrow, is greyer-brown above and has yellow undertail coverts.

The song has three parts, which can be repeated endlessly: tecky tecky tecky tick tick tick tick tyew!tyew!tyew!tyew! It's call is a sharp tyick. The flight call is a buzzy zzee.

Distribution

It breeds from the Adirondack Mountains in New York through northern Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine north and west throughout much of Canada. It is also found breeding in northeast Minnesota and northern Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is migratory, wintering in southern Central America and northern Colombia and Venezuela, with a few stragglers going as far south as Ecuador. It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe. This bird was named from a specimen collected in Tennessee, where it may appear during migration.

Ecology and behavior

The Tennessee warbler feeds mainly on insects and prefers the spruce budworm. This species fluctuates in population with the quantity of the budworm. It also likes flower nectar, fruit and some seeds.

This warbler, like most others, is nervous and quick while foraging. It creeps along branches and is found at all levels. It is solitary while nesting, but forms mixed flocks after breeding.

The Tennessee warbler prefers coniferous forests, mixed conifer-deciduous forests, early successional woodlands and boreal bogs. It makes a cup-shaped nest of dried grasses and moss lined with finer grasses, stems and hair. The nest can be placed on the ground or above a bog in moss or in the base of a shrub. The nest is built by the female, and she lays 4–7 white eggs with brown splotches on them.

References

1. BirdLife International (2012). "Vermivora peregrina". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.1. International Union for Conservation of Nature.

• Curson, Jon; Quinn, David; Beadle, David (1994). New World Warblers. London: Christopher Helm. ISBN 0-7136-3932-6.
• Alsop, Fred J., III (2002). Birds of the Mid-Atlantic. Smithsonian Handbooks. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 978-0789484284.

External links

• Tennessee warbler Species Account - Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Tennessee warbler - Vermivora peregrina - USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
• Tennessee warbler videos, photos, and sounds at the Internet Bird Collection
• Tennessee warbler photo gallery at VIREO (Drexel University)
• Tennessee warbler species account at NeotropicalBirds (Cornell University)