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Mourning Warbler | Geothlypis philadelphia
Grijskopzanger | Reinita plañidera | Mariquita-enlutada
The Mourning Warbler is a warbler with a grey hood and yellow underparts, which breeds in Canada and the north-eastern United States and winters from Nicaragua to northern South America. In the north of the guide area it is a common winter visitor in rank growth and thickets. It keeps low and hidden in dense vegetation and is often heard before it is seen.
Voice
The song, sometimes heard in spring in the guide area as well, is a rolling churry-churry-churry chorry-chorry. The call is a sharp, dry chek, often the first sign of its presence.
Recording: Stanislas Wroza — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
12.5–13 cm, with a fairly short tail. The male has a blue-grey hood that turns into a black, scaly patch on the breast, and no or only a faint eye-ring. The back and wings are olive-green and the underparts bright yellow. Females and young birds have a greyish-olive hood, a yellowish or pale throat and often thin, broken white eye-arcs. The legs are pink.
Confusion species
Connecticut Warbler Oporornis agilis is larger, with longer undertail coverts and a complete white eye-ring in all plumages; it walks rather than hops. Female Common Yellowthroats Geothlypis trichas lack a grey hood and have a whitish belly and brownish flanks. Male Masked Yellowthroat Geothlypis aequinoctialis has a black mask across the eye; females have an olive head without a grey hood.
Habitat
Dense thickets, rank growth, overgrown pastures, forest edges with ferns and herbs, young second growth and plantations, from the lowlands to about 2000 m, most numerous below 1500 m. It forages low near the ground for insects and spiders. Wintering birds hold individual territories. It does not breed in the guide area.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
In Colombia a fairly common winter visitor, both west and east of the Andes, in the valleys and on the lower slopes. In Ecuador mainly on the eastern slope and in the eastern lowlands, scarcer in the north-west. In Peru rare in the north. Not known from Bolivia or the Galápagos. Outside the guide area it breeds in Canada and the north-eastern United States and winters from Nicaragua to Venezuela.
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Between October and April, listen along overgrown forest edges and abandoned pastures for the sharp chek call. Wait quietly; the bird often shows briefly at the edge of the vegetation.
Conservation status
Least Concern. On the breeding grounds the species benefits from openings in the forest, such as clearings.
Scientific name
Geothlypis philadelphia | (Wilson, 1810)
Wilson described the species in 1810 as Sylvia Philadelphia; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Geothlypis was introduced in 1847 by Cabanis. The genus name combines Greek geō-, 'ground-, earth-', with thlupis, an unidentified small bird. The species name philadelphia refers to Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, United States), not necessarily the type locality. The specimen the first description was based on came from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.