Perching Birds
Townsend's Warbler
Dendroica
townsendi
Description
4 1/4-5" (11-13 cm). Adult male has
black crown, nape, ear patch, throat, and bib, and olive green back.
Face and breast bright yellow; sides heavily streaked with black;
white belly. Wings and tail dusky, with 2 white wing bars and white
outer tail feathers. In winter, in male, female, and immature, black
bib is replaced by dark streaking and black elsewhere becomes dusky
olive.
Voice
A rising series of notes, usually with 2
phrases, the first repeated 3 or 4 times, the second once or twice:
weazy weazy weazy weazy twea or dee dee dee-de de. Call is a soft
chip.
Habitat
Coniferous forests; in old stands of
Douglas firs, where it forages in the upper canopy.
Nesting
3-5 white eggs, wreathed and speckled
with brownish markings, in a well-concealed shallow cup in a
conifer.
Range
Breeds from Alaska and British Columbia to
northern Washington; Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Winters from
southwestern California southward.
Discussion
This warbler is a darker counterpart
of the Black-throated Green Warbler (
Dendroica virens), which
breeds east of the Rocky Mountains. The pattern of Townsend's
plumage is similar to that of the Hermit, Black-throated Gray, and
Golden-cheeked (
Dendroica chrysoparia) warblers; all these
warblers are believed to have developed from one ancestral
stock.
Perching Birds