Cerulean Warbler

Setophaga cerulea

Sky-blue and disappearing. The steepest long-term population decline of any eastern warbler. Sings from the treetops.

Population: ~530,000 mature individuals (2019 estimate)
Habitat: Breeds in mature, unfragmented eastern deciduous hardwood forest, foraging and nesting high in the canopy (often 15-30+ m up); winters in Andean submontane forest (roughly 1,000-2,000 m elevation) and shade-coffee plantations, often in mixed-species canopy flocks.
Fun fact: The Cerulean Warbler has been called the fastest-declining Neotropical migrant songbird in North America, having lost roughly 70-80% of its population since the 1970s largely due to loss of mature forest on both its Appalachian breeding grounds and its Andean shade-coffee wintering grounds.
Range: Breeds across eastern North America from Quebec/Ontario south to Nebraska and northern Texas, with roughly 80% of the breeding population concentrated in the Appalachian Mountains; migrates through Central America and the Caribbean to winter along the Andes of South America from Colombia and Venezuela south to Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Diet: Primarily insectivorous — gleans caterpillars (lepidopteran larvae) and other insects from foliage high in the canopy; occasionally takes nectar or gleans insects from flowers in the non-breeding season, with a preference for foraging on Inga trees.
Size: 0.11 m
Wingspan: 0.2 m
Lifespan: 5 years

More Songbirds