Wild Facts About The Pine Warbler
Quick Facts About Pine Warblers
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Scientific Name |
Setophaga pinus, formerly Dendroica pinus |
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Common Name(s) |
Pine Warbler |
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Animal Type |
Bird |
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Diet |
Seeds, fruits, insects |
|
Found |
Year-round throughout North Carolina. Found in and near pine forests only. |
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Description |
5.5 inches (14 cm). Males: Yellow-olive above with yellow throat and breast feathers and white belly. White eye ring and two white wing bars on each wing. Females and juveniles: Similar to males but duller overall. |
Pine Warbler Images
Pine Warbler. Setophaga pinus. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
Pine Warbler. Setophaga pinus. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
Pine Warbler. Setophaga pinus. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
Pine Warbler. Setophaga pinus. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
Pine Warbler. Setophaga pinus. Photograph taken by the author. Copyright © 2025 Now I Wonder. All rights reserved.
Fun Facts About Pine Warblers
Pine Warblers Stay Put At Home In North Carolina
- Unlike most other warbler species, Pine Warblers don’t migrate. They live year-round in North Carolina.
- Pine Warblers nest and live only in and around pine forests. Although they are common and widely distributed, it’s often easier to hear them to see them, especially during summer.
- They can be hard to spot during the summer because they are small birds that, in my experience, forage several meters above the ground in the tree foliage, and dart from perch to perch frequently.
- Winter is your best bet to see these birds out in the open, when the leaves are off deciduous trees and you can visually follow the birds as they fly from branch to branch.
Pine Warblers Start and Fill Their Days With Song
- Male Pine Warblers start singing before dawn and continue singing throughout the day but sing differently at different times.
- Scientists in Michigan studied 1,345 songs performed by 12 male Pine Warblers and found that:
- The studied Pine Warblers sang 37 song types,
- Each male sang between one and five song types,
- Males counter-sing before dawn, which means they sing in alternating rhythm,
- Sing more frequently before dawn than during the day.
- The male Pine Warblers sang at a rate of 6.63 ± 0.39 songs per minute before dawn versus 4.48 ± 0.2 songs/minute at other times (Price and Crawford 2013, https://doi.org/10.1676/13-006.1)
Pine Warblers Are Small But Mighty
- Pine Warblers are, at most, only about 5.5 inches long (14 cm). But they manage to chase off at least one species of much larger bird when motivated to do so—the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis).
- Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers grow to about 8 inches (20.3 cm). They are endangered and rarely seen but share the same pine forest habitat as the more common Pine Warblers.
- Pine Warblers are one of many bird species that interact with Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers.
- Often, Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers lose interactions with Pine Warblers, despite being close to three inches bigger and armed with large, strong, powerful bills.
- In one study completed in Florida, scientists studied 806 hours of foraging interactions involving Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers and other birds, including Pine Warblers.
- Pine Warblers won 86% of interactions with the Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers, which often involved chasing the larger woodpeckers for 15-60 seconds (Bowman et al. 1999, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4164098).
