Tennessee warbler

The Tennessee warbler (Leiothlypis peregrina) is a New World warbler that breeds in eastern North America and winters in southern Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. The specific name peregrina is from Latin  peregrinus "wanderer".

Description
The Tennessee warbler is 11.5 cm long, has a 19.69 cm wingspan, and weighs roughly 10 g. The breeding male has olive back, shoulders, rump and vent. The flight feathers are brownish-black. It has a slate gray neck, crown and eyeline. The underside is a gray-white. The female is similar to the male, but is much duller and is tinged with yellow and olive overall, especially on the underside. The Tennessee warbler has long wings, short tail and a thin, pointy bill. Juveniles and first-year birds are quite similar to the female. In winter and fall, adult male resembles juvenile and spring adult female but shows more yellow below: the grey neck and crown turn into an olive green while the underside takes a yellow hue. On the face the yellow supraocular line stands out. Both sexes have white undertail coverts all year long.

Tennessee warblers resemble female black-throated blue warblers. The only difference is that the black-throated blue has a darker cheek and two white wing spots.

This bird can be confused with the red-eyed vireo, which is larger, moves more deliberately and sings almost constantly. The orange-crowned warbler can also look similar, but lacks the white eyebrow, is greyer-brown above and has yellow undertail coverts.

Distribution
The Tennessee warbler breeds from the Adirondack Mountains in New York through northern Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine north and west throughout much of Canada. It is also found breeding in northeast Minnesota and northern Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is migratory, wintering in southern Central America, the Caribbean, and northern Colombia and Venezuela, with a few stragglers going as far south as Ecuador. It is a very rare vagrant to western Europe. This bird was named from a specimen collected in Tennessee, where it may appear during migration.

Ecology and behavior
The Tennessee warbler feeds mainly on insects and prefers the spruce budworm. This species fluctuates in population with the quantity of the budworm. It also likes flower nectar, fruit and some seeds.

This warbler, like most others, is nervous and quick while foraging. It creeps along branches and is found at all levels. It is solitary while nesting, but forms mixed flocks after breeding.

The Tennessee warbler prefers coniferous forests, mixed conifer-deciduous forests, early successional woodlands and boreal bogs. It makes a cup-shaped nest of dried grasses and moss lined with finer grasses, stems and hair. The nest can be placed on the ground or above a bog in moss or in the base of a shrub. The nest is built by the female, and she lays 4–7 white eggs with brown splotches on them.

Migration
In the eastern United States, Tennessee warblers can be very common during migration. They are vagrants to the western United States, especially the Pacific coast.

Books

 * Rimmer, C. C., and K. P. McFarland. 1998. Tennessee Warbler (Vermivora peregrina). In The Birds of North America, No. 350 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Thesis

 * McMartin DW. M.Sc. (1996). Impact of insecticide applications on the foraging behaviour and diet of three boreal forest warbler species. University of Toronto (Canada), Canada.

Articles

 * Barrowclough GF & Corbin KW. (1978). Genetic Variation and Differentiation in the Parulidae. Auk. vol 95, no 4. p. 691-702.
 * Bennett GF, Caines JR & Bishop MA. (1988). Influence of Blood Parasites on the Body Mass of Passeriform Birds. Journal of Wildlife Diseases. vol 24, no 2. p. 339-343.
 * Benson A-M, Pogson TH & Doyle TJ. (2000). Updated geographic distribution of eight passerine species in central Alaska. Western Birds. vol 31, no 2. p. 100-105.
 * Broad RA. (1981). Tennessee Warblers Vermivora-Peregrina New-Record for Britain Uk and Ireland. British Birds. vol 74, no 2. p. 90-94.
 * Cumming EE. (2004). Habitat segregation among songbirds in old-growth boreal mixedwood forest. Canadian Field Naturalist. vol 118, no 1. p. 45-55.
 * Cumming EE & Diamond AW. (2002). Songbird community composition versus forest rotation age in Saskatchewan boreal mixedwood forest. Canadian Field Naturalist. vol 116, no 1. p. 69-75.
 * Dick, James A, James, Ross D. (1996) Rufous crown feathers on adult male Tennessee Warblers. The Wilson Bulletin. Vol 108, no 1. p. 181 (2 pages)
 * Dunn EH & Nol E. (1980). Age Related Migratory Behavior of Warblers. Journal of Field Ornithology. vol 51, no 3. p. 254-269.
 * Fraga RM. (1989). Interactions between Nectarivorous Birds and the Flowers of Aphelandra-Sinclairiana in Panama. Journal of Tropical Ecology. vol 5, no 1. p. 19-26.
 * Greenberg R, Bichier P & Sterling J. (1997). Bird populations in rustic and planted shade coffee plantations of Eastern Chiapas, Mexico. Biotropica. vol 29, no 4. p. 501-514.
 * Hall GA. (1981). Fall Migration Patterns of Wood Warblers in the Southern Appalachians USA. Journal of Field Ornithology. vol 52, no 1. p. 43-49.
 * Harrison, R Bruce and Fiona K A Schmiegelow, Robin Naidoo. (2005) Stand-level response of breeding forest songbirds to multiple levels of partial-cut harvest in four boreal forest types. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. Vol 35, no 7. p. 1553 (15 pages)
 * Hobson KA & Bayne E. (2000). Breeding bird communities in boreal forest of western Canada: Consequences of "unmixing" the mixedwoods. Condor. vol 102, no 4. p. 759-769.
 * Hobson KA & Bayne E. (2000). Effects of forest fragmentation by agriculture on avian communities in the southern boreal mixedwoods of western Canada. Wilson Bulletin. vol 112, no 3. p. 373-387.
 * Hobson KA & Schieck J. (1999). Changes in bird communities in boreal mixedwood forest: Harvest and wildfire effects over 30 years. Ecological Applications. vol 9, no 3. p. 849-863.
 * Hobson KA & Van Wilgenburg S. (2006). Composition and timing of postbreeding multispecies feeding flocks of boreal forest passerines in western Canada. Wilson Journal of Ornithology. vol 118, no 2. p. 164-172.
 * Holmes SB. (1998). Reproduction and nest behaviour of Tennessee warblers Vermivora peregrina in forests treated with Lepidoptera-specific insecticides. Journal of Applied Ecology. vol 35, no 2. p. 185-194.
 * Holmes SB & Nixon EA. (2000). Nesting biology of the Tennessee Warbler, Vermivora peregrina, in northern Ontario. Canadian Field Naturalist. vol 114, no 1. p. 34-44.
 * Hoving EJ & Sealy SG. (1987). Species and Age Composition of a Sample of Birds Killed in Fall 1979 at a Manitoba Canada Tv Tower. Prairie Naturalist. vol 19, no 2. p. 129-134.
 * Howe HF & De Steven D. (1979). Fruit Production Migrant Bird Visitation and Seed Dispersal of Guarea-Glabra in Panama. Oecologia. vol 39, no 2. p. 185-196.
 * Kirk DA, Diamond AW, Smith AR, Holland GE & Chytyk P. (1997). Population changes in boreal forest birds in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Wilson Bulletin. vol 109, no 1. p. 1-27.
 * Kirk DA & Hobson KA. (2001). Bird-habitat relationships in jack pine boreal forests. Forest Ecology & Management. vol 147, no 2-3. p. 217-243.
 * Machtans CS & Latour PB. (2003). Boreal forest songbird communities of the Liard Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada. Condor. vol 105, no 1. p. 27-44.
 * McMartin B, Bellocq I & Smith SM. (2002). Patterns of consumption and diet differentiation for three breeding warbler species during a spruce budworm outbreak. Auk. vol 119, no 1. p. 216-220.
 * Norton RL. (1993). Territorial Aggression by a Migrant Tennessee Warbler: Defense of an Artificial Food Source. Caribbean Journal of Science. vol 29, no 3-4. p. 261-262.
 * Patten MA & Burger JC. (1998). Spruce budworm outbreaks and the incidence of vagrancy in eastern North American wood-warblers. Canadian Journal of Zoology. vol 76, no 3. p. 433-439.
 * Quay WB. (1985). Sperm Release in Migrating Wood-Warblers Parulinae Nesting at Higher Latitudes. Wilson Bulletin. vol 97, no 3. p. 283-295.
 * Quay WB. (1989). Insemination of Tennessee Warblers During Spring Migration. Condor. vol 91, no 3. p. 660-670.
 * Sealy SG. (1985). Analysis of a Sample of Tennessee Warblers Vermivora-Peregrina Window-Killed During Spring Migration in Manitoba Canada. North American Bird Bander. vol 10, no 4. p. 121-124.
 * Sealy SG. (1989). Defense of Nectar Resources by Migrating Cape May Warblers. Journal of Field Ornithology. vol 60, no 1. p. 89-93.
 * Stewart PA. (1986). Fall Migration of Twelve Species of Wood Warblers through Coastal Virginia USA. North American Bird Bander. vol 11, no 3. p. 83-88.
 * Toms JD, Hannon SJ & Schmiegelow FKA. (2005). Population dynamics of songbirds in the boreal mixedwood forests of Alberta, Canada: Estimating minimum and maximum extents of spatial population synchrony. Landscape Ecology. vol 20, no 5. p. 543-553.
 * Tramer EJ & Kemp TR. (1979). Diet Correlated Variations in Social Behavior of Wintering Tennessee Warblers Vermivora-Peregrina. Auk. vol 96, no 1. p. 186-187.
 * Winker K. (1993). Specimen shrinkage in Tennessee warblers and "Traill's" flycatchers. Journal of Field Ornithology. vol 64, no 3. p. 331-336.
 * Winker K, Warner DW & Weisbord AR. (1991). Unprecedented Stopover Site Fidelity in a Tennessee Warbler. Wilson Bulletin. vol 103, no 3. p. 512-514.
 * Zhang L, Brooks DR & Causey D. (2004). Two species of Synhimantus (Dispharynx) Railliet, Henry and Sisoff, 1912 (Nematoda: Acuarioidea: Acuariidae), in passerine birds from the area de Conservacion Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Journal of Parasitology. vol 90, no 5. p. 1133-1138. -->