Bird of the Week 6/22 - 6/26

If you haven’t checked out "Find-a-Flock” (our new daily bird geography puzzle game), you should! I think you’ll enjoy it, and you may learn something about birds along the way… Without further ado:

This week’s bird is the: Black-throated Blue Warbler

1. During the summer months, the Black-throated Blue ranges from the high elevation Appalachian mountains in the Great Smoky Mountains up to the edge of the boreal zone in Southeastern Canada. It prefers mostly dense forests with lots of shade, making it trickier to see than hear.

2. Despite living in an environment that makes it so hard to see, this bird has enjoyed much research attention from the ornithological community. According to one study, this species ranks #28 out of 293 species in terms of research attention (measured as the number of scientific publications featuring this species).

3. What makes this bird so popular? Well, one explanation is how blue it is. Being ascetically pleasing means scientists may want to study you over say, the Brown-breasted Brown Sparrow (not a real bird).

4. Another reason for this outsized attention is that the range of this bird overlaps with the range of many ornithologists (i.e. the Northeast U.S.). It’s much easier to study a bird within driving distance compared to flying halfway around the world!

5. All of this attention has helped to develop a really good understanding of this bird’s biology, including many aspects of its habitat preferences, migration, and responses to climate change. A better understanding of all of these factors can lead to better targeted efforts to protect these birds and other species as well.

Have a great week!