Male. Note: yellow crown and black throat and auriculars.
  • Male. Note: yellow crown and black throat and auriculars.
  • Female. Note: greenish yellow crown and yellowish wingpatch.

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Golden-winged Warbler

Vermivora chrysoptera
Passeriformes
Parulidae
  • Species of Concern

General Description

The male is gray overall with a yellow patch on the wing, black mask bordered by white, black throat, and yellow crown; the female is similar but less strongly marked. This species nests from southern Manitoba eastward across the northern tier of states and southern Ontario to New England, and southward in the Appalachians to northern Georgia; it winters from southern Mexico to Colombia. Like the Blue-winged Warbler—a close relative with which it hybridizes where their ranges meet—the Golden-winged is a trans-Gulf migrant, and hence one of the rarest vagrant “eastern” warblers in the West. Oregon has two accepted records, Idaho one, and British Columbia none. Washington’s single accepted record was netted and banded at Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge (Spokane County) on 20 August 1998.

Revised August 2007

North American Range Map

North America map legend