Mourning Warbler

The Mourning Warbler is a shy, ground-hugging warbler best known for the somber gray hood of the male, which includes a blackish patch across the lower throat and upper breast reminiscent of a mourning veil, a feature that gives the species its evocative name. The rest of the underparts are bright yellow, and the back is a clean olive-green with no wingbars.

Females and immatures are considerably duller, with a paler grayish-olive hood and little or no black on the breast, making them trickier to identify with confidence.

Key field marks

• Gray hood covering the head and upper breast (male)
• Blackish patch or mottling on the lower throat/breast in adult males
• Olive-green back, bright yellow underparts
• No eyering, or at most a very thin, broken one
• No wingbars

Similar species

MacGillivray's Warbler, the western counterpart, is very similar but shows bold broken white eye-crescents ("spectacles") above and below the eye, which Mourning Warbler lacks or shows only faintly. Connecticut Warbler has a complete bold white eyering and is a larger, longer-legged bird that walks rather than hops.

Mourning Warblers breed across the boreal and northern hardwood forests of Canada and the northeastern/north-central United States, favoring dense, shrubby second growth such as regenerating clear-cuts, forest gaps, and overgrown clearings rather than mature closed-canopy forest.

They winter from Central America into northern South America, again favoring dense, shrubby forest understory and edge habitat.

Behavior and voice

Mourning Warblers are skulking and often stay low and hidden in dense tangled vegetation, gleaning insects and spiders and rarely venturing into the open, making them more often heard than seen.

The song is a rolling, rich series often rendered as "chirry-chirry-chirry-chorry-chorry," with a slightly descending, tumbling quality.

Nesting

The nest is built low in dense shrubs or brambles, sometimes nearly on the ground, made of grass, leaves, and bark strips. Clutches typically contain 3-5 eggs.