By Karen O’Neil The Townsend’s Warbler is another quite handsome wood-warbler. The male has a striking, bright yellow and black face and head with a black mask, throat, and upper breast. The rest of the breast is yellow, the belly is white, the back olive-green, and the wings gray with two white wing bars. The tail is gray with white outer tail feathers that can be seen from underneath and in flight. The female is duller with a white throat. This species does not breed in Arizona. Instead, it spends the summer breeding and raising its young in the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest in both the coastal belt and the more inland mountains. However, its migration is spread out over a long time in both the spring and fall, and it migrates through Arizona. It can be found during those two seasons both in the mountain conifer forests and in streamside trees in Yavapai County. Most individuals winter in Mexico and Central America in the same type of habitat as where it is found in migration, but a few can be found in coniferous/oak forests along the West Coast. In the U.S., this warbler is found almost exclusively in the West. Look for the Townsend’s Warbler in the upper parts of trees where it forages for insects. In its tropical wintering grounds it also feeds on berries and
By Karen O’Neil The Painted Redstart is arguably one of the most beautiful birds found in the U.S. It is one of 51 wood-warblers found in the country, and its range here is restricted to the Pine-oak forests in the mountains of Arizona, New Mexico, and southwestern Texas. In the U.S., it is a migrant (meaning it comes here to breed), but it is a resident in similar habitat in the mountains of Mexico. It usually arrives in early April and returns to Mexico by early September. The Painted Redstart is 5.5 inches long, black with a bright red breast and belly, large white wing-patches, and white under-tail feathers. It also has white lower-eye crescents. Both sexes look the same, but the juveniles have black, not red, breasts and bellies. You could call the Painted Redstart a show-off. While foraging for insects through pine and oak trees, it constantly turns this way and that, flashing it white wing and tail patches. And, it forages from the ground to the tree-tops. It may also hover briefly. They have also been reported at hummingbird feeders. During courtship (from late April into May), both males and females sing an unusually loud song that can ring through the forest. Roger Tory Peterson described it as “weeta, weeta, weeta, chilp, chilp, chilp” (or sometimes a shorter version of same). Its nest is hidden on slopes
