Nashville Warbler
(Vermivora ruficapilla)

Nashville Warbler #1
Nashville Warbler #2
The Nashville Warbler is bright yellow below and olive green above.  The head is a colorful gray or blue-gray, with a white eye ring and a rust colored patch on the crown that is sometimes difficult to see.The song is a loud "see-PIT-see-PIT-see-PIT-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp" The call note is a high thin "seet".  The singing perches on the breeding grounds is usually high and often exposed.

The habitat is the woodland edges and open brushy mixed forests and bogs of Canada and the United States along the great lakes and St Lawrence Seaway.  In the west the inhabit the open forests of Idaho, and Oregon, down to northern California.  Like many other warblers they have benefited from the decline in farming in the northeast as abandoned pasturelands have become overgrown with brush. This warbler winters in Central America from El Salvador to Honduras. During their migrations they can be seen over a large part of the United States in a variety of habitats.

The clutch consists of 4 or 5 white eggs speckled with brown and deposited in a nest made of grass, leaves, moss, and rootlets and lined with pine needles and other fine materials.  Look for the nest on the ground at the base of bush or hidden in a clump of weeds.  The eggs are incubated for about 11 or 12 days by both male and female and the young fly about 11 days later.

The diet consists almost exclusively of insects which it actively gleans from the ground or leaf tips.  They are especially fond of caterpillars and help to keep Gypsy moths under control.

Length: 4 1/2 inches

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