Alternative name: Golden Swamp Warbler
- Protonotaria citrea
Identification
14 cm (5½ in)
Male
- Bright orange-yellow head
- Gold overall plumage
- Bluish-grey wings
Female: slightly duller
- Olive upperparts
- Bluish-grey tail
- Yellow underparts
- Long pointed bill
- Black legs
Females and immature birds are duller and have a yellow head.
Distribution
Main breeding range from southwest Iowa east to Ohio south to eastern Texas east to Alabama and from southern New Jersey south to northern Florida. Mostly absent from the Appalachians. Small local populations in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont. It winters in the West Indies, Central America and northern South America. Rare vagrant to California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico.
Taxonomy
This is a monotypic species[1].
Habitat
Seasonally flooded hardwood forests and swamps, along creeks and rivers.
Behaviour
Diet
Their main diet consists of insects such as butterflies, moths, flies, spiders and beetles; with the addition of molluscs such as snails. Outwith the breeding season will also include seeds, fruit and nectar. They forage low to the ground in shrubs and on fallen logs.
Breeding
They construct their nest near water in tree cavities about 2 m above ground, sometimes using old holes from the Downy Woodpecker.. It is lined with moss. The clutch contains 3-7 glossy white eggs with brownish spots. Incubation takes about 12-14 days, fledging usually after 10 days.
They are sometimes parasitised by the Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater), or outcompeted for nest sites by the House Wren (Troglodytes aedon).
Vocalisation
Call: tsweet, twseet, twseet, twseet.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2019. The eBird/Clements Checklist of Birds of the World: v2019. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Petit, L. J. (2020). Prothonotary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.prowar.01
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Prothonotary Warbler. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 26 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Prothonotary_Warbler
External Links
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