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Bay-breasted Warbler | Setophaga castanea
Kastanjezanger | Chipe castaño
The Bay-breasted Warbler is a fairly large warbler of the northern coniferous forest; in breeding plumage the male has a chestnut crown, throat and flanks. It migrates through eastern Mexico and Central America and winters mainly in Panama and northern South America. In the guide area it is a passage migrant and, in the south, a winter visitor.
Voice
The song is a very high, thin series of paired notes, roughly teesi teesi teesi, softer and less rising than in other warblers; in the guide area heard mainly in spring. The call is a short chip, the flight call a high tseet.
Recording: David Darrell-Lambert — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–15 cm. The breeding male has a chestnut crown, a black mask, a buff patch on the side of the neck, a chestnut throat and flanks, a grey back with black streaks and two white wing bars. The female is duller, with less and fainter chestnut. In autumn and winter plumage, as usually seen in the guide area: olive-green upperparts with faint streaks, two broad white wing bars, unstreaked buffy-white underparts, often a trace of chestnut on the flanks, buff undertail coverts and dark legs.
Confusion species
Blackpoll Warbler Setophaga striata in autumn plumage has faintly streaked flanks, a more yellowish breast, white undertail coverts and pale, yellowish legs. Chestnut-sided Warbler Setophaga pensylvanica in winter plumage has bright green upperparts, a grey face with a white eye-ring and greyish-white underparts. The autumn male Blackburnian Warbler Setophaga fusca has a yellow throat and pale stripes on the back.
Habitat
On migration and in winter humid lowland and foothill forest, forest edges, mature secondary forest, gallery forest and shade coffee; mostly below 1200 m. It forages unhurriedly from mid-level into the canopy for insects and in winter also eats much fruit, berries and nectar. In winter it often joins mixed flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Breeds in the northern coniferous forest of Canada and the extreme north-eastern United States. Migrates through eastern Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula and the Caribbean slope of Central America. Winters in Panama, locally in south-eastern Costa Rica, and in northern Colombia and north-western Venezuela.
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In winter in Panama regularly seen in mixed flocks at forest edges and in gardens in the lowlands, for example around the Panama Canal; in autumn plumage check for the unstreaked flanks and dark legs.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Numbers fluctuate strongly with outbreaks of the spruce budworm (Choristoneura), a caterpillar that is an important food source in the breeding range; over a longer period the population has declined.
Scientific name
Setophaga castanea | (Wilson, 1810)
Wilson described the species in 1810 as Sylvia castanea; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Setophaga was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Setophaga is Greek, from sēs, sētos 'moth' and -phagos '-eating': 'moth-eater'. castanea is Latin for 'chestnut', after the male's chestnut crown, throat and flanks. The specimen the first description was based on came from Pennsylvania, United States.