The Pine Warblers, Dendroica pinus, is a small songbird of the New World warbler family.
Distribution
Their breeding habitats are open pine woods in eastern North America. These birds are permanent residents in southern Florida. Some of them, however, migrate to northeastern Mexico and islands in the Caribbean.
The first record for South America was a vagrant wintering female seen at Vista Nieve, Colombia, on 20 November 2002; this bird was foraging as part of a mixed-species feeding flock that also included wintering Blackburnian and Tennessee Warblers.
Description
The pine warbler is a small active warbler that grows to a length of 4.75 to 5.5 inches (12 to 14 cm) – including its tail and has a wingspan of 9 inches (22 cm).
The back and upper wings are olive-colored and it has white wing bars. The bill is pointed and thin, and the throat and breast are yellow.
It is the only bird within its range that has a bright yellow throat and white wing bars.
Call / Song
The song of this bird is a musical trill. Their calls are slurred chips.
Diet / Feeding
They forage slowly on tree trunks and branches by poking their bill into pine cones. These birds also find food by searching for it on the ground. These birds mainly eat insects, seeds, and berries.
Nesting
Pine warblers reach sexual maturity when they are about one year old. The mating season is from mid-March through early June. Their deep, open cup-shaped nests made of bark strips, pine needles, twigs, and other fine materials are built 25 to 40 feet (7.5 to 12.5 m) above ground near the branch tips of pine trees. Pine Warblers prefer to nest in pine trees, hence their names.
Females lay three to five eggs, white with brown spots. The young hatch after about ten days. The young are altricial (born with their eyes closed and bald), but they open their eyes, grow feathers, and fledge all within about ten days of hatching. Pine warblers live less than five years.
Footnotes
- Strewe & Navarro (2004)
References
- BirdLife International (2004). Dendroica pinus. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 12 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is of least concern
- Strewe, Ralf & Navarro, Cristobal (2004): New and noteworthy records of birds from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region, north-eastern Colombia. Bull. B.O.C. 124(1): 38-51.
