Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler Dendroica magnolia
Sound (91 KB)
DESCRIPTION:
Size:
5 inches (13 cm)
Abundance:
• Common
Quick Identification:
• Yellow underparts with heavy black streaking
• In spring: black face with white eyebrow
• White spots half way down tail
Identification Tips:
• Small, active, insect-eating bird
• Bright yellow rump
• Thin, pointed bill
• Broken white band in tail
Adult male breeding:
• Black mask
• White supercilium and broken eye ring
• Pale gray crown
• Black back
• Golden yellow underparts
• Heavy black streaks across breast and onto flanks
• Gray wings with thick white edging
• Females in breeding plumage similar but duller
Nonbreeding and immature:
• Indistinct white eye ring and supercilium
• Head grayish
• Back grayish-olive with variable amounts of black streaking (heaviest in adult males)
• Grayish band across breast
• Yellow to yellow-gray throat
• Fine to thick black streaking on flanks
• White wing bars
Similar species:
• The breeding-plumage Magnolia Warbler is quite distinctive with its bright yellow
underparts with thick black streaks and black mask. Nonbreeding and immature plumaged
birds are more difficult to identify. The yellow underparts with streaking confined to the
flanks is also found in Prairie, Kirtland's, Black-throated Green, and Blackburnian
Warblers. All these species lack a gray breast band and white tail band. Blackburnian has
a bold yellow supercilium. Black-throated Green has a yellow face. Prairie wags its tail
and has a different face pattern. Kirtland's Warbler has darker gray upperparts.
HABITAT:
Moist spruce-fir forests, clearings, along woodland roads, overgrown pastures, edges of
swamps and ponds with small trees. In migration, lower branches near the center of trees
and thickets.
NESTING & FEEDING:
BREEDING: Open coniferous (spruce-fir-hemlock) forest. ? broods. Mating system is
monogamous.
DISPLAYS: Courtship: male pursues female, often pausing and posturing.
NEST: 3-5 eggs. Well hidden, usually loosely built and not well attached to support; of
weed stalks, fine twigs, fine grass; lined with fine materials, always includes some black
rootlets. Both sexes help with nest construction.
EGGS: White to creamy, marked with browns, olive, usually wreathed or capped. 0.7"
(17 mm).
CHICK DEVELOPMENT: Female incubates. Incubation takes 11-13 days. Development is altricial
(immobile, downless, eyes closed, fed). Young leave the nest after 8-10 days. Both sexes
tend young.
DIET: Insects. Takes less fruit than any other Dendroica in winter.
CONSERVATION: Winters from c Mexico s to c Panama and e to Puerto Rico. Uncommon cowbird
host.
NOTES: Female gives unusual "squeaky" alarm note when disturbed on nest. Usually
forages by hopping between branches with tail fanned; commonly picks insects from bottom
surface of leaves. Males tend to forage higher than females.
WORLD RANGE:
Dendroica magnolia MAGNOLIA WARBLER. Open coniferous and mixed
coniferous-deciduous woodland, edge, second growth. From ne British Columbia and se Yukon,
wc,s Mackenzie and c Saskatchewan e across s Canada to s Newfoundland and s to sc British
Columbia and e to se Manitoba, ne Minnesota, c Wisconsin, c Michigan, nc,ne Ohio, n
Pennsylvania, nw New Jersey and c New England, and in the Appalachians to W. Virginia.
Winters in se,sw Mexico, C. America, Greater Antilles and Bahama Islands. Vagrant to
British Isles, Calif. (some have wintered).
