A small olive-green warbler. Despite the name, doesn't live in Tennessee year-round — Alexander Wilson collected the type specimen there during migration.
§ Quick facts
§ Encyclopedia
The Tennessee warbler is a New World warbler that breeds in eastern North America and winters in southern Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America. The specific name peregrina is from Latin peregrinus "wanderer".
Source: Wikipedia — Tennessee warbler Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
§ Identification
Field marks. Breeding male: gray head, white eyebrow, dark eye line, plain greenish back, clean white underparts. Fall birds yellow-green with a pale eyebrow and white undertail coverts.
Similar species. Orange-crowned Warbler is similar in fall but has yellow (not white) undertail coverts and a blurry-streaked breast; Tennessee is cleaner and shorter-tailed.
Voice. A loud, staccato, three-parted song that accelerates: 'ticka-ticka-ticka swit-swit-swit chew-chew-chew-chew'.
§ Diet & behavior
Diet. Insects (caterpillars primary), spiders, occasional berries on migration.
Behavior. An active canopy forager in spruce forest and, in migration, flowering trees where it drinks nectar. Population tracks spruce budworm outbreaks.
§ Range
Boreal Canada in summer; winters in South America
§ Habitat
Boreal coniferous and mixed forests
§ Threats
Boreal forest loss, climate change.
§ Conservation status
According to the IUCN Red List, the tennessee warbler is currently classified as Least Concern.
§ What helps
Support boreal forest conservation.
§ Further reading
- Wikipedia — Tennessee warbler
- www.allaboutbirds.org — authoritative profile of Leiothlypis peregrina
- IUCN Red List — search for Leiothlypis peregrina
- GBIF occurrence records
- Encyclopedia of Life — Leiothlypis peregrina
§ Sources cited
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology — All About Birds
- National Audubon Society
- iNaturalist
- IUCN Red List
