Black-throated Blue Warbler

IDENTIFICATION: The male is deep blue above, with a black throat and sides. The female is dull olive above, without the black undersides. Both sexes have a distinctive, white wing-patch. The male and female appear so different that some early scientists considered them distinct species. Length: 12-13 cm.; weight: 10 g.

VOICE: Call note is a flat "tick." Audio 3 (M. Oberle). The song is a series of 3-7 ascending, buzzy notes, but is usually heard on the winter grounds on arrival or just before migrating north.

HABITAT: Wet, dry and elfin forests, gardens, shade coffee plantations.

HABITS: Feeds on insects (caterpillars, leafhoppers, flies, weevils, other beetles) and spiders by hovering, or flying past a leaf and plucking off the prey. Also feeds on fruits, such as Miconia, especially at higher altitudes. Males prefer taller trees at low to middle altitudes, while females are more common in lower vegetation at high altitudes. Both sexes maintain a winter territory of about ║ hectare, and often return to the same site in successive winters. On the breeding grounds in North America, the female builds a nest in the forest shrub layer. She does all the incubation of the four eggs for 12-13 days, but both parents feed the young. Chicks leave the nest at about 8-10 days of age when they can fly weakly. Both parents help feed the fledglings, but early in the breeding season, the female sometimes abandons the male and chicks, and attempts a second nesting with a different mate.

STATUS AND CONSERVATION: One of the commonest winter warblers in Puerto Rican forests, this species has benefited from the recovery of forests on its breeding grounds in eastern North America.

RANGE: Breeds in deciduous forests of much of eastern North America. Almost all individuals of this species winter in the Greater Antilles. Black-throated Blue Warblers from the southern portion of the breeding range (the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia south to Georgia) are more likely to winter in Puerto Rico than birds that breed farther north, which tend to winter in Cuba. A regular place to find this species is in the forest near the El Portal visitor center in El Yunque.

TAXONOMY: PASSERIFORMES; PARULIDAE


Male - Photo: B. Hallett


Female - Photo: B. Hallett

References

Arendt, W.J. 1992. Status of North American migrant landbirds in the Caribbean region: a summary. Pp. 143-171 in Ecology and conservation of neotropical migrant landbirds (J.M. Hagan III and D.W. Johnston, eds.) Smithsonian Instit. Press, Washington, D.C.

Bent, A.C. 1953. Life histories of North American wood warblers. Smithsonian Instit. U.S. National Museum Bull. 203. (Reprinted by Dover Press, NY, 1963).

Cruz, A. 1980. Avian feeding assemblages in Puerto Rico. Carib. J. Sci. 15:21-27.

Curson, J., D. Quinn, and D. Beadle. 1994. Warblers of the Americas: an identification guide. Houghton Mifflin, NY.

Dunn, J. and K. Garrett. 1997. A field guide to warblers of North America. Houghton Mifflin, NY.

Faaborg, J. and W.J. Arendt. 1992. Long-term declines of winter resident warblers in a Puerto Rican dry forest: which species are in trouble? Pp. 57-63 in Ecology and conservation of neotropical migrant landbirds (J.M. Hagan III and D.W. Johnston, eds.) Smithsonian Instit. Press, Washington, D.C.

Hobson, K. A. 2002. Incredible journeys. Science 295:981-983.

Holmes, R. T. 1994. Black-throated Blue Warbler (Dendroica caerulescens). No. 87 in The birds of North America (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). Acad. Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, PA, and Am. Ornithol. Union, Washington, D.C.

Holmes, R.T. and T.W. Sherry. 1992. Site fidelity of migratory warblers in temperate breeding and Neotropical wintering areas: implications for population dynamics, habitat selection, and conservation. Pp. 563-575 in Ecology and conservation of neotropical migrant landbirds (J.M. Hagan III and D.W. Johnston, eds.) Smithsonian Instit. Press, Washington, D.C.

Oberle, M. W., and J. C. Haney. 1997. Possible breeding range extensions of northern forest birds in northeast Georgia. Oriole 62(3/4):35-44.

Pérez-Rivera, R.A. 1980. Algunas notas sobre migración de aves en Puerto Rico. Science-Ciencia 7(4):123-126.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. A guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Princeton.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. Una guía a las aves de Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes. Publishing Resources, Inc., Santurce, PR.

Raffaele, H.A., J.W. Wiley, O.H. Garrido, A.R. Keith, and J.I. Raffaele. 1998. Guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton.

Rubenstein, D. R., C. P. Chamberlain, R. T. Holmes, M. P. Ayres, J. R. Waldbauer, G. R. Graves, and N. C. Tuross. 2002. Linking breeding and wintering ranges of a migratory songbird using stable isotopes. Science 295:1062-1065.

Saether, B-E. 2000. Weather ruins winter vacations. Science 288:1975-1976.

Sillett, T. S., R. T. Holmes, and T. W. Sherry. 2000. Impacts of a global cycle on population dynamics of a migratory songbird. Science 288:2040-2042.

Steele, B. B. 1993. Selection of foraging and nesting sites by Black-throated Blue Warblers: Their relative influence on habitat choice. Condor 95:568-579.

Wunderle, J.M. 1992. Sexual habitat segregation in wintering Black-throated Blue Warblers in Puerto Rico. Pp. 299-307 in Ecology and conservation of neotropical migrant landbirds (J.M. Hagan III and D.W. Johnston, eds.) Smithsonian Instit. Press, Washington, D.C.

Wunderle, J.M., A. Díaz, L. Velasquez, and R. Scharrón. 1987. Forest openings and the distribution of understory birds in a Puerto Rican rainforest. Wilson Bull. 99:22-37.

Wunderle, J.M., Jr., and R.B. Waide. 1993. Distribution of overwintering nearctic migrants in the Bahamas and Greater Antilles. Condor 95:904-933.

Wunderle, J.M., Jr., and S. C. Latta. 2000. Winter site fidelity of nearctic migrants in shade coffee plantations of different sizes in the Dominican Republic. Auk 117(3):596-614.

Black-throated Blue Warbler, Spanish text

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