The golden-crowned warbler (''Basileuterus culicivorus'') is a small

New World warbler The New World warblers or wood-warblers are a group of small, often colorful, passerine birds that make up the family Parulidae and are restricted to the New World. They are not closely related to Old World warblers or Australian warblers. Most ...

Distribution and habitat

It breeds from

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and south through

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

to northeastern

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

, and on

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

. It is mainly a species of lowland forests.

Description

The golden-crowned warbler is long and weighs . It has grey-green upperparts and bright yellow underparts. The head is grey with a black-bordered yellow crown stripe, a yellow or white supercilium and a black eyestripe. Sexes are similar, but the immature golden-crowned warbler is duller, browner and lacks the head pattern other than the eyestripe.

Taxonomy

Golden-crowned warbler has 13 geographical races, which fall into three groups. The Central American ''culicivorus'' group (known as the stripe-crowned warbler) is essentially as described above, the southwestern ''cabanisi'' group (known as Cabanis's warbler) has grey upperparts and a white supercilium, and the ''aureocapillus'' group (known as the golden-crowned warbler) of the southeast, which has a white supercilium and orange-rufous crown stripe. The three groups are sometimes considered to be different species.

Behaviour

These birds feed on

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s and

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

s. The song is a high thin ''pit-seet-seet-seet-seet'', and the call is a sharp ''tsip''. It lays two to four rufous-spotted white eggs in a domed nest in a bank, often by a forest path, or under leaves on the forest floor. Parent birds will feign injury to distract potential nest predators.

References

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External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1535791

golden-crowned warbler The golden-crowned warbler (''Basileuterus culicivorus'') is a small New World warbler. Distribution and habitat It breeds from Mexico and south through Central America to northeastern Argentina and Uruguay, and on Trinidad. It is mainly a spec ...

Birds of Central America Birds of South America