This week’s Bird of the Week, compliments of the Weminuche Audubon Society and Audubon Rockies, is the MacGillivray’s warbler.
This is another of our difficult-to-spot summer visitors. Finding protection in dense thickets of shrubs, this warbler stays hidden until his song gives him away. Throughout the breeding season, the male sings frequently both early and late in the day, often from exposed perches. But the slightest disturbance will have him ducking back inside the safety of dense cover.
If you are fortunate enough to get a MacGillivray’s in view, you will see a colorful bird, yellow below and olive colored above. He wears a gray hood and his eyes are outlined by white crescents. Females and immatures are similar, but are a more muted version of this color scheme.
Look for this warbler in a variety of disturbed areas with dense understory habitat. They will breed in forested areas without any overhead canopy like those recovering from fire or clear-cuts, but they have a preference for riparian and moist areas.
MacGillivray’s are a Western bird, breeding from southern Alaska south to California and east to western South Dakota. They are reported in our area from May through September. Winter finds them in Mexico and Central America.
This warbler searches for insects on leaves, low branches and in the duff, usually staying in an area 3 feet or lower from the ground. In Colorado, some of these birds have been found drinking at sapsucker wells.
This is a bird whose name has already changed once and will again. Originally it was known as Tolmie’s Warbler, in honor of ornithologist William Tolmie. Later, John James Audubon renamed it for his friend William MacGillivray and this is the name it bears today. Last November, the American Ornithological Society announced that it will change all English bird names currently named after people. This is an effort to equitably eliminate references to people, some of whom history has shown engaged in racist acts. New names will be less exclusionary and better depict attributes of the birds they describe.
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