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Order: Passeriformes Family: Parulidae Chick Type: Altricial Blue-winged Warblers breed from southern half of Michgan to the northern half of Alabama and from eastern Oklahoma to Massachusetts. Blue-wings migrate each year to wintering grounds in the southern parts of Central America and northern parts of South America. Diet consists of a broad range of insects and spiders. Breeding habitat consists of early to midsuccessional habitats, such as clear cut aspen, alder swamps and young regenerating hardwoods. Nests are built barely off the grounds in the base of shrubs. Their habitat was once made by fire, windfalls, and other disturbance, but now most of it is created by clear cutting forests and regenerating abandoned farms. Clutch size is usually around 2 - 7 white with brown speckled eggs. Incubation time is 10 - 11 days. Habitat in winter is more varied, and often includes older stands of secondary growth forest. Blue-winged Warblers are common birds in much of their range. Over the last 60 years or so, their range has shifted northward due to land use changes that created more available habitat on the northern end of their range. This modification of habitat has brought Blue-wings into contact with Golden-winged Warblers, a closely related species. The Golden-winged Warbler uses similar early successional habitat but is more of a habitat specialist than the Blue-winged. Where their ranges overlap, the two species interbreed, producing fertile hybrid offspring of various intermediate phenotypes. Once hybridization is occuring in an area, replacement by Blue-wings is typical, in some cases in as little as a few decades. The first generation cross between Blue-winged & Golden-winged Warblers is known as a Brewster's Warbler. A Brewster's Warbler bred back to a Golden-winged or Blue-winged Warbler is known as a Lawerence's Warbler. Some states are have management plans for this species, one example is Wisconsin. Items such as how to practice forestry and land management in a way that will keep blue-wing populations stable are covered in such plans. |
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