Palm Warbler
Setophaga palmarum
Summary 3
The palm warbler (Setophaga palmarum) is a small songbird of the New World warbler family.
Taxonomy 4
The species comprises two distinct subspecies that may merit specific status.
"Yellow palm warbler" or "eastern palm warbler" (S. p. hypochrysea) of the eastern third of the breeding range has brownish-olive upper parts and thoroughly yellow underparts with bold rufous breast and flank streaking. It migrates later in the fall than its western counterpart.
"Brown palm warbler" or "western palm warbler" (S. p. palmarum) inhabits the remaining western two-thirds of the breeding range. It has much less yellow below, with less colorful streaking, and cold grayish-brown upper parts.
Distribution 4
Palm warblers breed in open coniferous bogs and edge east of the Continental Divide, across Canada and the northeastern United States.
These birds migrate to the southeastern United States, the Yucatán Peninsula, islands of the Caribbean, and eastern Nicaragua south to Panama to winter. They are one of the earlier migrants to return to their breeding grounds in the spring, often completing their migration almost two months before most other warblers. Unlike most Setophaga species, the Palm warbler's winter range includes much of the Atlantic coast of North America, extending as far north as southern Nova Scotia. Every year since 1900 the Palm warbler has been observed during Christmas Bird Count activities in Massachusetts, and consistently since 1958 in Nova Scotia. For the interval 1966-2015 the Palm warbler population increased throughout much of its northern-most breeding range.
Palm warbler has been recorded as a vagrant to Iceland.
Sources and Credits
- (c) Bill MacIndewar, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Bill MacIndewar
- (c) Ned Haight, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND), http://www.flickr.com/photos/14346057@N00/4490107543
- Adapted by Bill MacIndewar from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setophaga_palmarum
- (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_warbler
