Virginia's Warbler

About the Virginia's Warbler

Virginia's Warbler is a subtle beauty of the dry western mountains: soft gray overall with a yellow chest patch, yellow under the tail, and a crisp white eyering, forever twitching its tail as it works through scrub oak. It was named for Virginia Anderson, the wife of the army surgeon who collected the first specimen in the 1850s, not for the state.

It is a bird of steep, brushy slopes, nesting on the ground under shrubs in country that looks too dry for a warbler. In Texas it is a Trans-Pecos specialty, breeding very locally in the mountains and slipping through as a scarce migrant.

This one was teasing through the oak scrub in Dog Canyon, Guadalupe Mountains National Park.