Guide to Boreal Birds
Perching Birds Overview
The male is one of the easier warblers to identify since it retains its strikingly patterned plumage year-round. These warblers are among the tamest and most trusting of this family. If an observer moves very deliberately, the bird may be approached to within a few feet (about a meter).
Description
5" (13 cm). Male blue-gray above, white below, with black face, throat, and sides; female dull olive green, with narrow white eyebrow and usually a small, square, white wing patch.
Voice
Song a husky, rising zwee-zwee-zwee.
Nesting
4 brown-spotted white eggs in a nest made of leaves and grass, lined with cobwebs and hair and set near the ground in a shrub or a young tree.
Habitat
Mixed deciduous and evergreen woodlands with thick undergrowth, especially mountain laurel.
Range/Migration
Breeds from western Ontario east to southern Quebec and Nova Scotia; south to Minnesota, Great Lakes, and Connecticut; and in mountains to northern Georgia. Winters in Gulf Coast states (irregularly) and Greater Antilles.