National Geographic Magazine/Volume 31/Number 4/Friends of Our Forests/Mourning Warbler

Mourning Warbler (Oporornis philadelphia)


Range: Breeds in lower Canadian Zone from east central Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, southwestern Keewatin, Nova Scotia, and Magdalen Islands south to central Minnesota, Michigan, central Ontario, and mountains of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and West Virginia; winters from Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Colombia and Ecuador.

The mourning warbler is a near cousin of the Maryland yellow-throat and, like that bird, sticks rather closely to Mother Earth, being no lover of tree-tops. Unlike the yellow-throat, however, it is one of the rarest of the family, and few ornithologists have ever enjoyed opportunity to get on familiar terms with it and to observe its habits adequately.

Most observers, like myself, have come across a few in migration from time to time, chiefly in spring, when the birds' habits may be described in general terms as a combination of those of the Maryland yellow-throat and the Connecticut warbler. During the spring migration it frequents brushy hillsides and damp thickets, and in the nesting season seems partial to briar patches, in which it places its bulky nest of leaves and stalks.

The song is said to be rich and full and has been compared with that of the Maryland yellow-throat and the water-thrush.

Source: Henry W. Henshaw (April 1917), “Friends of Our Forests”, The National Geographic Magazine 31(4): 321. (Illustration from p. 320.)