- Cerulean Warbler
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Cerulean Warbler 
Conservation status Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Parulidae Genus: Dendroica Species: D. cerulea Binomial name Dendroica cerulea
(Wilson, 1810)Synonyms Dendroica caerulea (unjustified emendation)
The Cerulean Warbler, Dendroica cerulea, is a small songbird of the New World warbler family.
Contents
Description
Adult males have pale cerulean blue upperparts and white underparts with a black necklace across the breast; they also have black streaks on the back and flanks. Females and immature birds have greyer or greenish upperparts, a pale stripe over the eye, and no streaking on the back and no necklace. All of these birds, regardless of their age, have wing bars and a thin pointed bill.
Distribution and habitat
Their breeding habitats are mature deciduous forests in eastern North America. They migrate to spend the boreal winter in forested mountain areas in South America.
Behaviour
They forage actively high in trees, sometimes catching insects in flight. These birds mainly eat insects. Their nests are cup-shaped, and are placed on a horizontal branch high in a hardwood tree. The song is a buzzed zray zray zray zray zeeee. The call is a slurred chip.
Status and conservation
The Cerulean Warbler is the fastest declining neotropical migrant songbird. Among the many threats they face, their wintering habitat in the northern Andes is dwindling rapidly. Cerulean Warblers depend on shade coffee plantations during the winter. This traditional farming technique is at risk as coffee prices fluctuate and pressure to switch to higher-yield sun coffee or other crops intensifies.
In fragmented forest areas, this bird is vulnerable to nest parasitism by the Brown-headed Cowbird. This bird's numbers are declining faster than any other warbler species in the USA; its population nowadays is less than one-fifth of what it was 40 years ago [1]. The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is working with its Colombian partner, Fundación ProAves, to protect wintering habitat for Cerulean Warblers and other migrating songbirds. Together they have created the Cerulean Warbler Bird Reserve, the first protected area created for a neotropical migrant. In an effort to advance protection of the Cerulean Warbler, ABC and its South American partners (Fundacion ProAves, ECOAN and Fundacion Jocotoco), in 2009 produced a Cerulean Warbler Wintering Ground Conservation Plan.
Vagrancy
Palm Warbler has been recorded as a vagrant to Iceland.[2]
In art
John James Audubon illustrates the Cerulean Warbler in Birds of America (published, London 1827-38) as Plate 48 where two birds are shown perched in a Bear Berry bush. The image was engraved and colored by Robert Havell's London workshops. The original watercolor by Audubon was purchased by the New York History Society where it remains to this day (March 2009).
Jonathan Franzen uses the Cerulean Warbler as a plot device in his 2010 novel, Freedom.
References
- ^ BirdLife International (2004). Dendroica cerulea. 2006. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. www.iucnredlist.org. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes a range map, a brief justification of why this species is vulnerable, and the criteria used
- ^ Þráinsson, Gunnlaugur (1997) Palm Warbler and Cerulean Warbler in Iceland - new to the Western Palearctic Birding World 10(10): 392-393
External links
- Cerulean Warbler Atlas Project
- Cerulean Warber Species Account - Cornell Lab of Ornithology
- Cerulean Warbler Information - South Dakota Birds and Birding
- Cerulean Warbler - Dendroica cerulea - USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter
Categories:- IUCN Red List vulnerable species
- Dendroica
- Birds of Bolivia
- Birds of Colombia
- Birds of Ecuador
- Birds of Peru
- Native birds of the Eastern United States
- Birds of Venezuela
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