Kirtland's Warbler
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| Dendroica kirtlandii (Baird, 1852) |
The Kirtland's Warbler, Dendroica kirtlandii, is a small songbird of the New World warbler family.
These birds have bluish-grey upper parts with dark streaks on the back and yellow underparts with streaked flanks. They have thin wing bars, dark legs and a broken white eye ring. Females and juveniles are browner on the back. Like the Palm Warbler and Prairie Warbler, they wag their tails frequently. Their song is a loud chip-chip-chip-too-too-weet-weet often given from the top of a pine.
Their breeding habitat is young Jack Pine woods in a very limited area in the north of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan; they have also been seen in Ontario and Wisconsin but do not breed there regularly. The nest is an open cup on sandy soil near a pine tree.
Kirtland's Warblers forage in the lower parts of trees, sometimes hovering or searching on the ground. These birds eat insects and some berries, also eating fruit in winter. In winter, they migrate to pine forests in the Bahamas.
The numbers and range of this bird have decreased since the early 20th century due to loss of suitable breeding habitat. Since Jack Pines only seed after significant disturbances, such as forest fires and clear cuts, this bird's habitat is being preserved by controlled burns and staggered timber harvests in its limited breeding range. Since this habitat management regime was begun in the 1970's, the birds numbers have steadily risen, though they are still at dangerously low levels. People have also intervened to protect this bird against nest parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds, to which these birds are highly susceptible.
This bird was named after Jared P. Kirtland, an Ohio doctor and amateur naturalist.
In June 2006 three male Kirtland's Warblers were seen at CFB Petawawa. On July 6th one of these birds was captured, banded, and released by the Canadian Wildlife Service.
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2005). Dendroica kirtlandii. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes a range map and justification for why this species is near threatened
- Harold Mayfield: The Kirtland's Warbler, Cranbrook Institute of Science Bulletin no. 40, 1960.
