Black-throated Blue Warbler

About the Black-throated Blue Warbler

The male Black-throated Blue Warbler is one of the most elegant warblers in North America - deep midnight blue above, clean white below, with a jet-black face, throat, and sides and a small white "pocket handkerchief" spot on the wing. The female is so different she was once thought a separate species: plain olive-brown with a pale eyebrow and that same white wing spot, the one mark that gives her away.

Unlike most warblers it feeds low and deliberately in the shady understory, working through shrubs and saplings for insects rather than dashing about the canopy - a calm, confiding bird that often lets you get close. The song is a lazy, buzzy "I am so la-zeee" rising at the end.

The Black-throated Blue breeds in the Appalachians and the Northeast and migrates through Florida to the Caribbean, so it barely touches Texas at all: it is a rare fall migrant and a very rare winter visitor here, and every one draws attention. The birds photographed here spent part of November 2024 at Brackenridge Park in San Antonio - a notable Texas record and a bird few Texas birders have on their state list.