For the Birds: Townsend’s Warblers

Male Townsend's Warbler
Photo by Craig Kerns

By Christine Southwick

Have you seen a small yellow bird with black head-stripes, a cheek patch, and black on the throat and crown? 

You’ve just seen a male Townsend’s Warbler. The female has olive-colored stripes and cheek patch and crown, and a light throat.

This is often a winter-time treat since they usually stay high up in the trees until it gets colder and the bugs are fewer.

Townsend’s are mostly migratory birds with two separate wintering grounds. Because the wintering grounds of the Queen Charlotte Islands’ Townsend’s is here and along the Pacific Coast, we are lucky enough to have Townsend’s around all year round. 

Female Townsend's Warbler
Photo by Craig Kerns

Cornell’s “All About Birds” map now shows that our area has a resident population where they stay up high in our tall evergreens during the summer and come down lower in the winter, mostly to water, suet (think bug replacement) and yes, hummingbird feeders.

Townsend’s Warblers pluck insects from conifer needles. They will occasionally catch flying insects in midair. 

Adults mostly forage high in the forest canopy. During the breeding season they may come lower down when feeding young. 

Townsend’s eat caterpillars—especially spruce budworms—as well as ants, bees, moths, beetles, weevils, and bugs, especially stinkbugs. Spiders, seeds, and leaf galls form a smaller portion of the diet. During migration, they feed in flowers, probably sipping the nectar.

Female Townsend's Warbler
Photo by Chris Southwick

Townsend’s prefer to nest on the ends of branches on tall mature evergreens in dense forests, so they are hard to research. There is much that isn’t known about their movements, or all their breeding habits. 

It is believed that they are seasonally monogamous, with the males picking their territory and the migrating males arriving first to pick and defend their territories by singing. 

The female lays 3-5 eggs in a well-concealed nest, and both parents feed the young.

Some banding data suggests that the Townsend’s Warblers that don’t migrate have shorter-length wings than the ones the migrate from Mexico or Guatemala. 

The shortening of wing length for resident birds or the lengthening of long distance migrants has been observed in other species.

Welcome these delightfully bright local warblers with mealworms, peanut butter, suet, and much needed unfrozen water. Don’t be surprised if you see one on your hummingbird feeder. They are known to have a hankering for sweet drinks.

See previous For the Birds articles here.