The Cerulean Warbler, Dendroica cerulea, is a small songbird

Songbird

A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds . Another name that is sometimes seen as scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin oscen, "a songbird"...

 of the New World warbler

New World warbler

The New World warblers or wood-warblers are a group of small, often colorful, passerine birds restricted to the New World. They are not related to the Old World warblers or the Australian warblers....

 family.

Description

Adult males have pale cerulean blue upperparts and white underparts with a black necklace across the breast; they also have black streaks on the back and flanks. Females and immature birds have greyer or greenish upperparts, a pale stripe over the eye, and no streaking on the back and no necklace. All of these birds, regardless of their age, have wing bars and a thin pointed bill.

Distribution and habitat

Their breeding habitats are mature deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

 forests in eastern North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

. They migrate

Bird migration

Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...

 to spend the boreal winter in forested mountain areas in South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

.

Behaviour

They forage actively high in trees, sometimes catching insects in flight. These birds mainly eat insects. Their nests are cup-shaped, and are placed on a horizontal branch high in a hardwood

Hardwood

Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees . It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.Hardwood contrasts with softwood...

 tree. The song is a buzzed zray zray zray zray zeeee. The call is a slurred chip.

Status and conservation

The Cerulean Warbler is the fastest declining neotropical migrant songbird. Among the many threats they face, their wintering habitat in the northern Andes

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

 is dwindling rapidly. Cerulean Warblers depend on shade coffee plantations during the winter. This traditional farming technique is at risk as coffee prices fluctuate and pressure to switch to higher-yield sun coffee or other crops intensifies.

In fragmented forest areas, this bird is vulnerable to nest parasitism by the Brown-headed Cowbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

The Brown-headed Cowbird is a small brood parasitic icterid of temperate to subtropical North America. They are permanent residents in the southern parts of their range; northern birds migrate to the southern United States and Mexico in winter, returning to their summer habitat around March or...

. This bird's numbers are declining faster than any other warbler species in the USA; its population nowadays is less than one-fifth of what it was 40 years ago http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2006/12/cerulean_warbler.html. The American Bird Conservancy

American Bird Conservancy

American Bird Conservancy is a non-profit membership organization with the mission of conserving native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas...

 (ABC) is working with its Colombian partner, Fundación ProAves

Fundación ProAves

Fundación ProAves is a nonprofit environmental organization in Colombia established in 1998. Its primary aims are to protects birds of conservation concern and their habitats across Colombia.ProAves has over 60 full-time professional staff...

, to protect wintering habitat for Cerulean Warblers and other migrating songbirds. Together they have created the Cerulean Warbler Bird Reserve

Cerulean Warbler Bird Reserve

Cerulean Warbler Bird Reserve, also known as the Reinita Cerúlea Bird Reserve, is a nature reserve near Bucaramanga in central Colombia. The reserve is set among oak forest on the eastern slopes of the Magdalena River...

, the first protected area created for a neotropical migrant. In an effort to advance protection of the Cerulean Warbler, ABC and its South American partners (Fundacion ProAves, ECOAN and Fundacion Jocotoco), in 2009 produced a Cerulean Warbler Wintering Ground Conservation Plan.

In art

John James Audubon

John James Audubon

John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats...

 illustrates the Cerulean Warbler in Birds of America

Birds of America (book)

The Birds of America is a book by naturalist and painter John James Audubon, containing illustrations of a wide variety of birds of the United States. It was first published as a series of sections between 1827 and 1838, in Edinburgh and London....

 (published, London 1827–38) as Plate 48 where two birds are shown perched in a Bear Berry bush. The image was engraved and colored by Robert Havell's London workshops. The original watercolor by Audubon was purchased by the New York History Society where it remains to this day (March 2009).

Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His third novel, The Corrections , a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...

 uses the Cerulean Warbler as a plot device in his 2010 novel, Freedom.

External links

• Cerulean Warbler Atlas Project
• Cerulean Warber Species Account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Cerulean Warbler Information – South Dakota Birds and Birding
• Cerulean Warbler – Dendroica cerulea – USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter