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Townsend's Warbler | Setophaga townsendi
Townsends zanger | Chipe negroamarillo
Townsend's Warbler is a small warbler with a dark cheek patch outlined in yellow, a yellow breast and, in the male, a black throat. It breeds in coniferous forest in north-western North America and is a common winter visitor to montane forest in Mexico in the guide area, in smaller numbers south to Nicaragua.
Voice
The song is a buzzy, rising series, roughly weezy weezy weezy tswee; in the guide area heard mainly in spring. The call is a sharp tsik.
Recording: Paul Marvin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
12–13 cm. Head with a dark cheek patch, black in the male and olive-green in the female, outlined by a yellow eyebrow and a yellow band below the cheek. Crown dark, back olive-green with black spots, two white wing bars. The male has a black throat and upper breast; in the female and young birds the throat is yellow. Breast yellow with black streaks on the flanks, belly and undertail coverts white.
Confusion species
Hermit Warbler Setophaga occidentalis has an all-yellow head without a cheek patch, a grey back and a white breast; hybrids with intermediate patterns occur. Black-throated Green Warbler Setophaga virens has an olive-green cheek patch without a black outline, a white breast and an unspotted back. Black-throated Grey Warbler Setophaga nigrescens has the same head pattern in black and white, without yellow.
Habitat
In winter pine-oak forest, oak forest, coniferous forest and cloud forest in the mountains, mainly from about 1000 to 3500 m; in north-western Mexico also lower, in chaparral, parks and gardens. It searches for insects in the middle and upper levels and travels with mixed flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Breeds from Alaska to Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Winters along the Pacific coast of the United States and in the mountains of Mexico, from Sonora and Chihuahua south through Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to Nicaragua; rare in Costa Rica. On migration also in northern Mexico. On the range map, areas with year-round occurrence in the north of the guide area reflect overlapping records of wintering birds and migrants; the species does not breed in the guide area.
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In winter one of the most frequent warblers in mixed flocks in the pine-oak forest of the Mexican mountains, for example around Mexico City and in Oaxaca and Chiapas.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Common and widespread; the breeding population appears stable.
Scientific name
Setophaga townsendi | (Townsend, 1837)
Townsend described the species in 1837 as Sylvia townsendi; 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'. townsendi honours the American naturalist John Kirk Townsend (1809–1851), who collected the species on the Columbia River. The specimen the first description was based on came from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, Washington (USA).