BLACK BIRDS SEEN IN NORTH AMERICA

Blackpoll Warbler

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Setophaga Striata 

BREEDING PLUMAGE:

Males are black-and-white with a distinctive black cap and white cheeks bordered by a black moustache stripe.

Females are streaky black, white, and gray without the male’s black cap or white cheek.

Both sexes have two white wingbars and orange-yellow legs.

NONBREEDING PLUMAGE:

They have greenish heads, dark-streaked greenish upperparts and yellowish breasts. Their wing bars are always present.

Young birds are similar with the yellow extending to their belly.

BILL: small and thin.

SIZE: measures about 5.5 inches in length, with a wingspan of 8.3 - 9.1 inches.

WEIGHT: weighs about 12 - 13 grams.

COLOR: breeding plumage: black and white. nonbreeding plumage: green and yellow.

Insects, berries, seeds and fruits.

Deciduous woodlands, parks, gardens during migration. Conifer forests and thickets during breeding.

BREEDS: Northern North America, from Alaska throughout most of Canada to New York and New England.

WINTER: The Greater Antilles and the Northeastern coasts of South America. Rare vagrants to western Europe.

CALL: Thin "sits".

SONG: Simple repetitions of high "tsi" notes.

NEST: The female builds a cup-shaped nest with twigs and lichen and shapes the inner cup with her body, twisting from side to side until the finer grasses and hair used to line the nest are in place.

EGGS: 3 - 5 whitish to pale green eggs with brown and purplish blotches around the larger end.

INCUBATION: 11 - 12 days.

NESTLING PHASE: 8 - 10 days.

They move deliberately along foliage and branches of trees and shrubs, gleaning insects from the vegetation as they go.

They are also capable of flycatching, flying out from a perch and capturing insects in mid-air.

SOURCES:
https://www.birds-of-north-america.net
https://en.wikipedia.org
https://www.allaboutbirds.org
https://www.sdakotabirds.com