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Blue-winged Warbler | Vermivora cyanoptera
Blauwvleugelzanger | Reinita aliazul
The Blue-winged Warbler is a yellow wood-warbler with blue-grey wings and a narrow black eye-line, breeding in overgrown fields and young second growth in the eastern United States. It winters mainly in Mexico and Central America; the Caribbean lies at the edge of the wintering range and is visited in small numbers. It is closely related to Golden-winged Warbler and regularly hybridises with it.
Voice
The call is a fairly sharp chip; the flight call a thin, buzzy tsee. The song, mainly on the breeding grounds but sometimes already on spring migration, consists of two buzzy notes, beee-bzzz, the second lower and rougher.
Recording: Stephen Tyndel — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–12 cm, with a fine, pointed bill. Head and underparts bright yellow, back olive-green. Wings and tail are blue-grey, with two white wing bars; the undertail coverts are white and the tail shows white spots from below. A narrow black line runs from the bill through the eye. The female is duller, with less yellow on the crown and a fainter eye-line. Immatures resemble the female, with a greener crown.
Confusion species
Golden-winged Warbler Vermivora chrysoptera is grey and white, with a black mask, a black or grey throat and a yellow wing patch. Hybrids occur: 'Brewster's Warbler' is grey and white with the narrow eye-line of Blue-winged and yellow or white wing bars, 'Lawrence's Warbler' is yellow with the black mask and throat of Golden-winged. Prothonotary Warbler Protonotaria citrea is larger and lacks both eye-line and wing bars. American Yellow Warbler Setophaga aestiva has yellow edges to the wings and tail and no black eye-line.
Habitat
In the region forest edges, clearings and young second growth in semi-evergreen, moist and dry forest and limestone forest, also in higher montane forest. It forages in the lower and middle levels for insects and spiders, often hanging from leaf clusters and dead leaves, and joins mixed flocks.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
A scarce passage migrant and winter visitor in the Bahamas, Cuba and the Cayman Islands; rare in Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. A vagrant in the Lesser Antilles. Breeds in the eastern United States and extreme southern Ontario, and winters from southern Mexico to Panama.
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
The best chance is in the migration months of September–October and March–April, in mixed flocks in forest and at forest edges in Cuba, the Bahamas and Grand Cayman. The yellow head with its narrow black eye-line and the white wing bars on a blue-grey wing identify it in any plumage. An atypical bird may well be a hybrid.
Conservation status
Not threatened. Over the past century the breeding range has expanded northwards, and in many places Blue-winged Warbler has replaced Golden-winged Warbler or absorbed it through hybridisation. In the long term the species depends on young second growth, which is declining in the breeding range.
Scientific name
Vermivora cyanoptera | Olson & Reveal, 2009
Olson & Reveal described the species in 2009 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Vermivora was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Vermivora is Latin, from vermis 'worm' and -vorus '-eating': 'worm-eater'. cyanoptera is Greek, from kuanos 'dark blue' and -pteros '-winged', after the blue-grey wings. The specimen the first description was based on came from North America (not specified).