National Geographic Magazine/Volume 31/Number 4/Friends of Our Forests/Black and White Warbler

Black and White Warbler (Mniotilta varia)


Length, about 4¼ inches. Easily known by its streaked black and white plumage.

Range: Eastern North America. Breeds from central Mackenzie, southern Keewatin, northern Ontario, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick to eastern Texas, Louisiana, central Alabama, and northern Georgia, west to South Dakota; winters in Florida and from Colima and Nuevo Leon to Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.

A warbler in form and general make-up, a creeper by profession and practice, this readily identified species, in its striped suit of black and white, may be observed in any bit of eastern woodland. Here it flits from tree to tree or climbs over the trunks and branches, scanning every crack and cranny for the insects that constitute its chief food. Though not a lover of open country, it frequently visits the orchard, where it performs its part in the task of keeping insect life within due bounds. It nests on the ground and hides its domicile so skillfully that it is not often found. None of the warblers are noted as songsters, but the black and white creeper, as I like best to call it, emits a series of thin wiry notes which we may call a song by courtesy only. In scrambling over the trunks of trees it finds and devours many long-horned beetles, the parents of the destructive root-borers; it also finds weevils, ants, and spiders.

Source: Henry W. Henshaw (April 1917), “Friends of Our Forests”, The National Geographic Magazine 31(4): 307. (Illustration from p. 309.)