New World warblers | Parulidae

Amerikaanse zangers | Reinitas | New World warblers

Small, short-billed insect-eaters of the foliage, nine to fifteen centimetres long and rarely heavier than fifteen grams. They work through a tree crown systematically, picking caterpillars and aphids from the undersides of leaves, hanging from a twig tip or catching an insect in a short sally. In the migratory species the plumage changes strongly with the season: in spring the males wear sharply defined patches of yellow, black, blue, orange or chestnut, and after the moult male, female and young bird often look greenish and vaguely marked, so that a wintering bird has to be identified on details such as undertail coverts, leg colour and wing bars. Part of these North American migrants winter in the northern Andes, such as Blackburnian Warbler and Canada Warbler, which from October to April travel with mixed flocks through the cloud forest. There are also many resident species, such as those of Basileuterus and Myiothlypis, the Myioborus species that flush insects with a spread tail, several of them found only in the Andes, and in the coastal mangroves and on the Galápagos the Yellow Warbler, there the only member of the family. The family is found only in the Americas.