By Stan Tekiela
There is a group of birds that a lot of people find very interesting and yet at the same time very frustrating. These are the warblers. The New World Warblers or sometimes called Wood-Warblers are an interesting group of birds that are often brightly colored, small and spend much of their time at the tops of trees. The bright colors are why many people find them interesting to look at but their nature of hanging out at the tops of trees makes them difficult to watch and very frustrating to correctly identify.
Warblers are unique to the New World. For those not familiar with the term “New World”, this means the America’s—North, Central and South America. Our warblers are not closely related to the Old World Warblers or Australian Warblers found in Europe, Asia and Australia. Most of these birds are arboreal, feeding high up in trees and building nests in the upper branches of tall trees, but a number of species feed, live and nest on the ground.
We have 53 different species of warbler in North America. There are many more in the tropics of Central and South America. Our warblers are highly migratory and move up into the northern tier states and Canada for nesting and return to the tropics for winter. Most of our warblers are highly migratory.
Most warblers have complex and pleasant-sounding songs. Typically, the male is the songster and belts out a loud and musical song in spring to attract a mate and to announce he is willing to defend his territory. Warblers also have a variety of calls. Calls are different from songs. Calls are usually a single sharp note that is given when the bird is alarmed or threatened. These “chip” notes are given by both males and females while males tend to be the sole songster.
The songs of warblers tend to be loud and clear. Birds who live, hunt and nest close to the ground tend to have lower pitched songs. The low pitch helps the song carry across the forest floor. Birds that live, and nest high in trees usually have higher pitched songs which allows their songs to travel further due to less obstacles. So basically, the song is optimized for the habitat that they live in.
Warblers tend to be small birds, usually under 7 inches in length. Our New World Warblers are often brightly colored, and males tend to have the flashy colors and females’ trend towards the duller side. In spring it is often easier to identify the warblers migrating through your area because of the brightly colored feathers. But in fall many of the warbler species molt into non-breeding plumage, making them all look similar and very difficult to distinguish between the species.