Crescent-chested Warbler Parula superciliosa
Desierto de los Leones, Mexico City. 24 March 2007

The beautiful Crescent-chested Warbler, usually placed in the genus Parula with the Northern and Tropical Parulas but sometimes in Vermivora with eg Orange-crowned and Virgnia’s Warblers, is a resident of montane oak-pine and mixed softwood forests of northern Mexico to Nicaragua. Some seasonal migration to lower elevations within mountain ranges has been documented and there are a small number of vagrants recorded from southeastern Arizona and in the lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas. There are apparently five races: the one occurring in Desierto de Los Leones should be P. s. mexicana, which according to Curson et al (”New World Warblers”, Helm 1994) is paler grey on the head and slightly larger than the nominate form which is found to the south.

Crescent-chested Warblers respond well to ‘pishing‘, and on both occasions I’ve seen the species (March 2005 and March 2007) birds were singing from oak trees within mixed woodland, when they moved around mid-storey and were reasonably easy to see. The buzzy, flat song lasts little more than a second and sounds a little like the trill of an Orange-crowned warbler (and is not as sweet or varied as that of a Northern Parula). There is a sound file of the song (which to my ears sounds a little drier and faster than the birds I just heard) on the online “Field Guide to Birds of North America” at http://whatbird.wildbird.com/obj/1064/_/target.aspx.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All photos copyright Charlie Moores