Bluewinged

Blue-Winged Warbler Vermivora pinus

Blue-Winged Warbler

Vermivora pinus

I’ve had the pleasure of living within earshot of the buzzing song of the Blue-Winged Warbler during the spring and summer months in Northeastern Ohio. I can best define this song as sounding like an insect in the distance.

It is one of the few species of warblers to hybridize with another specie. The Blue-Winged Warbler hybrids with the Golden-Winged Warbler to hybrid the more common and fertile Brewster’s Warbler, as they are able to backcross with the parent species and each other. Second generation hybrids include a rarer hybrid called Lawrence’s Warbler.

It often breeds near woodland borders of neglected pastures, in briar patches, bushy thickets and hillsides, and stream edges, where it conceals its nest in grasses or blackberry vines.

In recent decades this species is expanding its range northward, encroaching on Golden-Winged Warbler’s territories so much that it may gradually out compete and replace it in those areas.

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