Virginia’s Warblers, Vermivora virginiae, is a species of New World warbler.
Despite what its name may suggest, Virginia’s warbler is not named after the American State of Virginia, which makes sense as the bird’s range only reaches as far east as the state of Texas. The bird’s common eastern range is the central and southern mountains of Colorado, central Wyoming, and central and western New Mexico. The bird was named for Virginia Anderson, the wife of an army surgeon who discovered the bird at Fort Burgwyn, New Mexico, in 1858. When Spencer Fullerton Baird of the Smithsonian Institute fully described the bird for science in 1860 he honored the wishes of the warbler’s discoverer and designated Virginia to be both the bird’s common and scientific name.
Virginia’s warbler is a small bird, only 4 to 4½ inches in length. It is mainly gray, with a lighter-colored underbelly and a white eye ring. The rump and undertail coverts are yellow. Males also have a yellow patch on their breast and a red cap, both of which are lacking in female and immature birds. Virginia’s warbler can be easily mistaken for the Colima Warbler, but it is smaller and has a more yellow rump.
Life history
Virginia’s warblers is common in dense oak and pinyon woodlands and brushy streamside hills at altitudes ranging from 6,000 to 9,000 feet. It summers in the southwestern United States and will migrate as far south as Belize during the winter, as well as stopping in several Caribbean islands such as the Bahamas, Cuba, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Nests are built on the ground, hidden among dead leaves and tufts of grass at the base of a shrub or young tree. The nest is cup-shaped and constructed from moss, grass, strips of bark, and roots. The female will lay between 3 to 5 eggs, which are white and dotted with fine brown speckles. Young are attended to by both sexes, but the incubation period and other nesting habits are mostly unknown.
