Warblers - Introduction
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Purchase A Field Guide to Warblers of North America (The Peterson Field Guide Series). by Kimball L. Garrett, Jon L. Dunn, Cindy House (Illustrator)   Warblers of Eastern North America

The northern migration of the warblers is an annual rite of spring for many naturalists. Warblers are small (between 4 and 5 inches in length), active, sometimes brightly colored birds with slender, straight bills. Warbler songs are often complex and distinctive. Male (and usually female) warblers are relatively easy to identify in the spring and summer (up to late July). The different species of warblers show a variety of life styles, with some spending most of their lives high in the trees, and others foraging and breeding on, or near, the ground. The diversity of appearance between the species makes them among the most popular of the bird groups.

Warbler species are almost all insectivorous, feeding on insects and other invertebrates. Some species will eat an occasional berry, particularly in the winter. Warblers are migratorial, breeding in the north and moving south to Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, or the southern United States to overwinter.

Warbler species have a confusing collection of different plumages depending on sex, age, and season of the year. Breeding males are commonly colorful and striking different from other warbler species. Breeding females may look like the breeding male, or a slightly duller version of the male, although a few breeding females are markedly different than the males. The fall plumages may or may not resemble the breeding birds. Commonly the fall and winter plumages are much duller than the breeding individuals, typically a dull olive-brown above with vague markings on the head and underside. If the fall male plumage is different from the breeding plumage, the fall male plumage is called "basic" and the breeding male plumage termed "alternate". Immature warblers are typically dull and olive-brown and are often very difficult to tell apart.

This segment of Nearctica concentrates on the spring and summer adult warblers. The pictures in the plates are restricted to the breeding adults, although the individual species descriptions suggests differences between the immatures and fall adults of the different warbler species.

A rough approach to identifying breeding warbler species is to check the head markings and the presence or absence of wing bars (bars of white or yellow on the folded wings). Although identifying characters are certainly not restricted to these features, the combination is often enough to identify the species.

The Plates

The eight plates contain pictures of breeding males and females of the eastern warbler species and are designed to be printed with a color printer. You can print the plates and staple them together into a fast, free, disposable field guide.

The Geographic Range Covered

This segment of Nearctica covers the warbler species breeding east of the Mississippi River. All of the warbler species breeding somewhere within this geographical subdivision of North America are covered.

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