Colima Warbler

About the Colima Warbler

For many American birders, the Colima Warbler is the ultimate Texas prize - a plain gray-brown warbler with a warm buff-yellow undertail and a faint reddish crown patch, drab in the field but legendary in reputation. The reason is simple: the only place to find one in the entire United States is the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend National Park.

Colima Warblers breed in the oak-and-maple canyons high in the Chisos, foraging for insects in the understory and singing a simple trilling song. Seeing one means hiking the long, steep trails up to Boot Canyon and the high country - a rite of passage for listers.

In Texas they are warm-season breeders, arriving in spring to those high Chisos canyons and departing by late summer for Mexico. Nowhere else in the state - or the country - can you find them.

A note from behind the lens: this one is earned on foot, high in the mountains. Reach the breeding canyons in the cool of morning, listen for singing males in the oaks, and be ready for a patient wait in dappled canyon light for a look at this hard-won specialty.