All species › Passerines › New World warblers › Tropical Parula
Tropical Parula | Setophaga pitiayumi
Maskerparulazanger | Parula pitiayumí | Mariquita
The Tropical Parula is a small, blue-grey and yellow warbler of the canopy of humid montane forest. Unlike most warblers in the guide area it is not a migrant from the north but a resident that breeds here. It builds its nest in hanging beard lichen and other epiphytes.
Voice
The song is a rising, buzzy trill, often preceded by a few separate high notes, roughly tsip-tsip-tsip-tsrrrrrr. The call is a soft, high tsip.
Recording: Étienne Leroy — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · xeno-canto
Identification
11 cm, small and compact, with a short tail and a fine, pointed bill. The upperparts are blue-grey, with an olive-green patch in the centre of the back. The male has black lores and a blackish mask below the eye. The throat and breast are bright yellow, with an orange-ochre wash on the breast; the belly is yellow to whitish, the undertail coverts white. One or two white wing bars, varying in width by subspecies, and white spots in the outer tail feathers. The female is duller, with little or no black on the head. Young birds are greyer and paler yellow.
Confusion species
Northern Parula Setophaga americana, a rare winter visitor in northern Colombia, has white arcs above and below the eye, broader white wing bars, no black mask and, in the male, a dark and rufous band across the breast. Female Cerulean Warbler Setophaga cerulea is greenish blue, with a pale supercilium and almost white underparts. Blackburnian Warbler Setophaga fusca has a streaked back and a dark cheek patch.
Habitat
Canopy and edges of humid montane forest, cloud forest, riparian forest and semi-open country with tall trees, mainly between 500 and 2500 m; in western Ecuador and north-western Peru also in the lowlands and in wetter parts of the dry forest. It searches for insects and spiders among leaves and epiphytes, often in mixed flocks. The nest is a small cup in a clump of hanging beard lichen or other epiphytes.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of the Andes and the west coast.
Range and movements
Colombia: in all three Andean ranges, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Serranía de Perijá. Ecuador: on both Andean slopes and in the western lowlands. Peru: along the entire eastern slope of the Andes and in the north-west. Bolivia: in the Yungas and in the eastern lowlands and hills of Santa Cruz. Absent from the Galápagos and from most of the Amazonian lowlands. Outside the guide area from southern Texas and Mexico to northern Argentina and Uruguay.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Listen for the rising trill in mixed flocks in the canopy along forest edges and roads on the Andean slopes. It often forages high up and moves quickly among the epiphytes; wait until it appears on the outside of the crown.
Conservation status
Not evaluated in this circumscription. The species has a large range and is common in suitable forest; it tolerates forest edges and semi-open country, but disappears where the forest is cleared completely.
Scientific name
Setophaga pitiayumi | (Vieillot, 1817)
Vieillot described the species in 1817 as Sylvia pitiayumi; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Setophaga was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. The genus name comes from Greek sēs (genitive sētos), 'moth', and -phagos, '-eating', so 'moth-eater'. The species name is taken from pitiayumí, the Guaraní name for the bird in Paraguay, meaning 'small yellow breast'. Félix de Azara recorded the name in 1802; Vieillot adopted it in 1817. The specimen the first description was based on came from Paraguay.