Townsend’s Warbler Gallery
Setophaga townsendi
eBird gives this description of the Townsend’s Warbler: Contrasty face pattern; dark cheeks and crown bordered by bright yellow. Also shows olive back and grayish wings with bold white wingbars. Chest and sides are yellow with darker streaks. Intensity of colors varies with age and sex, but overall color pattern remains the same. Favors coniferous trees where they forage for insects; also found in a variety of wooded suburban habitats in the winter. All About Birds adds this descriptive information about the Townsend’s Warbler: The ethereal, buzzy songs of Townsend’s Warblers wafting through old-growth conifer forests provide a dreamlike soundtrack to an enchanting environment. Here, high in the treetops, they seem like tiny colorful ornaments as they forage high in dense foliage, hunting small insects and larvae. Migrants seem to appear in almost any habitat with vegetation. These warblers spend the winter not just in Mexico and Central America, but all along the U.S. Pacific Coast as well, where they often show up in backyards.
I was able to watch and photograph this colorful warbler on my August 31, 2020 visit to Christmas Mountains Sanctuary. The Townsend’s Warbler is such a beautiful little bird!
“Cool Facts” about the Townsend’s Warbler from All About Birds…
- On the wintering ground in Mexico, the Townsend’s Warbler feeds extensively on the sugary excretions (known as “honeydew”) of scale insects. It’s such a good food resource that Townsend’s Warblers set up and defend territories around trees infested with the insects.
- Townsend’s Warbler was first noted to science by John Kirk Townsend, an American naturalist who collected a male specimen near the mouth of the Columbia River in what is now Oregon, on April 16, 1835. His discovery followed a long cross-continental trek. Townsend was accompanied on this expedition by English botanist Thomas Nuttall. Dozens of western plants and animals bear the names of these early naturalists.
- The Townsend’s Warbler hybridizes with the similar-looking Hermit Warbler where their ranges overlap in Oregon and Washington. The hybrid zones are rather narrow and appear to be slowly moving, with the more aggressive Townsend’s Warbler displacing the Hermit Warbler.
- Sometimes a female Townsend’s Warbler will partially construct a nest in one tree, then move all the materials to another tree and finish the nest there.
- The oldest recorded Townsend’s Warbler was a male and at least 10 years, 8 months old, when he was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in California.