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Yellow-throated Warbler | Setophaga dominica
Geelkeelzanger | Reinita gorjiamarilla
The Yellow-throated Warbler is a North American wood-warbler with a grey back, a black-and-white head pattern and a bright yellow throat. In the northwestern half of the Caribbean it is a familiar winter visitor, often moving slowly through the crowns of palms and pines.
Voice
In winter mainly a clear, high chip. The song, sometimes heard in spring, is a series of clear, descending whistles ending in a short upward flourish.
Recording: Bill Pyle — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
13–14 cm. The upperparts are plain grey, with two white wing bars. The forehead and face are black, with a white supercilium (all white in the western form, yellow in front of the eye in the eastern form) and a white patch behind the ear-coverts. Throat and upper breast are yellow, the rest of the underparts white with black streaks along the flanks. The outer tail feathers have white spots. Females and birds in non-breeding plumage show a less crisp head pattern.
Confusion species
Bahama Warbler Setophaga flavescens of Abaco and Grand Bahama has a longer bill and a yellow belly as well. Olive-capped Warbler Setophaga pityophila has an olive-yellow crown and lacks the black ear patch and white neck patch. Adelaide's Warbler Setophaga adelaidae and St. Lucia Warbler Setophaga delicata are blue-grey with a yellow supercilium and no black mask. Black-throated Green Warbler Setophaga virens has a green back and a yellow face.
Habitat
Pine forest, coconut and other palms, coastal woodland, open broadleaf forest, mangroves and trees in gardens and parks. It forages slowly and thoroughly for insects on branches and in the leaf bases of palms and bromeliads, at times creeping over trunks and limbs like a nuthatch.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
A common winter visitor to the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Cuba and the Cayman Islands; fairly common on Hispaniola and Jamaica, scarce on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and rare in the Lesser Antilles. It breeds in the eastern and southern United States and winters from the southern US to Central America and the Greater Antilles.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
From September to March in the crowns of palms, including hotel grounds and villages in the Bahamas and Cuba. The clear chip often gives the bird away before it is seen.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species is widespread in North America and numbers are stable to increasing.
Scientific name
Setophaga dominica | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Motacilla dominica; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Setophaga was introduced in 1827 by Swainson. Setophaga is Greek, from sēs, sētos 'moth' and -phagos '-eating': 'moth-eater'. dominica probably refers to Santo Domingo (Hispaniola), via Brisson's 'Figuier de S. Domingue'; Linnaeus cited Jamaica and Dominica. The specimen the first description was based on came from Hispaniola.