Tropical Parula

Setophaga pitiayumi

The Tropical Parula has had many names, such as Sennett’s Warbler, Olive-Backed Warbler, Pitiayumi Warbler, and Tropical Parula Warbler. In the past, some considered it as the same species as the Northern Parula.

Today, most researchers recognize nine subspecies of Tropical Parula:

• S. p. nigrilora lives in eastern Mexico and sometimes in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in south Texas.
• S. p. pulchra lives in western Mexico from Sonora south to Oaxaca. Some of the northern breeding birds move south for the winter.
• S. p. insularis lives on islands off the Pacific coast of central Mexico.
• S. p. graysoni is endemic to the island of Socorro in the Revillagigedo Archipelago of Mexico.
• S. p. inornata lives in the highlands of southern Mexico and northern Central America.
• S. p. cirrha lives on islands off the Pacific coast of Panama.
• S. p. pacifica is a resident of South America’s northern Andes Mountains.
• S. p. alarum lives in the highlands of eastern Ecuador and Peru.
• S. p. pitiayumi lives in northern South America and on nearby Caribbean islands.

In February 2017, I visited the island of Socorro in the Revillagigedo Archipelago of Mexico and met the Socorro Parula, a subspecies of the Tropical Parula called S. p. graysoni.