Palm Warbler

Setophaga palmarum

Palm Warblers get their name from the region where they spend winters. Nesting further north than most moth-eaters (genus Setophaga), summers find them in regions (mostly in Canada) dominated by boggy shrub lands surrounded by conifers. Such habitats are unfriendly to their namesake palm trees. Even in winter we find them often in marshy lowlands in habitats that seem better suited to sparrows.

In keeping with their low-to-the-ground reputation, they usually place their nests on the ground below a small conifer, though they sometimes place the nest on a low branch about a foot from the ground.

Taxonomists call out two subspecies, diagnosed chiefly by coloration on the bellies of these birds in breeding plumage:

• S. p. palmarum breeds in Canada from southwestern Mackenzie Valley (NWT) east through northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba to northern Ontario, and south from central Alberta through central Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba to northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and southern Ontario. They spend winters chiefly in the Caribbean Basin, with some occurring north to the southeastern United States, and some spend winters south along the eastern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula and Costa Rica.
• S. p. hypochrysea breeds further east, from eastern Ontario through central and southern Quebec to Labrador and Newfoundland, and south from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, through northern New England to New York. They spend winters primarily on the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida.

Until my 2023 trip to Ontario Canada, my only meeting with this species had been on Isla Socorro in the Revillagigedo Islands, during the 2017 science expedition I was privileged to attend. Before crossing into Canada, I stopped in Ohio at Magee Marsh on the shore of Lake Erie. The Palm Warbler was one of the memorable birds I met there.