Phil Chadwick's Art: #3012 "Golden-winged Warbler Sing-a-long"

#3012 "Golden-winged Warbler Sing-a-long"
11 X 14 (inches).
Started at 9:00 am Tuesday, March 24th, 2026

The Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) is a small, migratory songbird known for its striking silver-gray body, gold crown, and dramatic black mask. These birds are critically threatened. Thanks again to my friend John Verburg, who provided this striking image of a beautiful little bird.

Golden-winged Warblers breed in tangled, shrubby habitats such as regenerating clearcuts, wet thickets, tamarack bogs, and aspen or willow stands. They tend to occur in wetland habitats more often than the closely related (and competitive) Blue-winged Warbler. Recent radio-tracking studies have discovered that Golden-winged Warblers move into mature forests immediately after fledging. This means that mosaics of shrubby, open areas (for nesting) and mature forest habitats (which offer cover for fledglings from predators like hawks) are important landscape features. This accurately describes the habitat of the Singleton Sanctuary.

The early 20th century was good to Golden-winged Warblers, as settlers cleared forest openings for settlement and farming. As the century progressed, many of those cleared areas grew back into forests, and humans prevented natural disturbances from opening up new pockets of nesting areas. Since the 1960s, Golden-winged Warbler habitat has decreased by an estimated 22 percent in the Great Lakes region and 43 percent in the northern Appalachians. On their wintering grounds, Golden-winged Warblers live in semiopen woodlands, as well as bird-friendly coffee farms under a forest canopy.

Food items include caterpillars, moths, spiders and such. Leafroller caterpillars appear to be an important food source. Golden-winged Warblers feed among the foliage by probing with their sharp bills into rolled-up leaves to find hidden prey. They only rarely catch insects on the wing.

Similar to chickadees, they often forage by hanging upside down from branches and, in the breeding season, are strictly insectivorous, favouring moths and caterpillars.

The 2025 State of the Birds report lists Golden-winged Warbler as a Yellow Alert Tipping Point species, meaning that it has lost more than 50% of its population in the past 50 years but has relatively stable recent trends. The North American Breeding Bird Survey estimates this species declined by 1.2% per year between 1966 and 2023, resulting in a cumulative decline of 52% over that period. Partners in Flight estimates a global breeding population of 390,000 individuals and rates the species 15 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score.

Golden-winged Warbler's breeding range is now largely split into two distinct regions, with 95% of the population in the Upper Great Lakes (mostly Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Manitoba) and the other 5% in the Appalachians from New York to Georgia. Minnesota now has the highest remaining density of Golden-winged Warblers, with about half the global population.

Some of the steps in the painting process to try to make the Golden-winged Warbler come alive and sing.

The Appalachian mountains population has nearly been extirpated (down 98 percent). Wetland habitats seem to be a stronghold for Golden-winged Warblers, but invasive Phragmites is making the birds’ preferred tussock-sedge nesting sites harder to find. The Singleton wetlands are still dominated by cattails with no phragmites. Clearcutting, burning, and grazing can improve habitat for Golden-winged Warblers, although new evidence points to the importance of keeping mature forest nearby, which we enjoy.

Loss of open forests on the wintering grounds is also a problem, and bird-friendly or shade-grown coffee and cacao plantations can help retain habitat for the species. The Golden-winged Warbler Working Group, a consortium including the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and 38 other universities, agencies, and conservation groups, has released a conservation plan to improve the species’ prospects by 2050. Let us hope that they and we might be successful.

Hopefully, the Golden-winged Warbler will be back in residence this summer! The competitive Blue-winged warbler was not seen during the 2010 Chadwick BiolBlitz, but it is probably alive and well at Singleton. The handsome Blue-throated Warbler (right) was spotted, and someday it may appear on its own canvas.