Red Warbler, Rare Arizona Visitor
Red Warbler, white cheek patch, foraging in Pine Oak forest, PN Volcán Nevado de Colima–Carretera a Nevado de Colima, Los Mazos, Jalisco, Mexico Jan 16, 2019, ©Townsend Dickinson Lis#J2O8277 All Rights Reserved.
A Red Warbler, silvery gray cheeked subspecies, was seen April 9, 2018 for one day only at Rose Canyon Lake on Mt. Lemon, AZ. According to the ABA this sighting is first verified sighting in the US. I was in SE Arizona at the time but missed it by two days. The bird shown in the accompanying photo is the white ear patch form found further south in Mexico. The Red Warbler is an endemic of humid conifer or pine-oak forests in the highlands of Mexico. The Arizona bird was hundreds of miles north of its expected range. They are small warblers, bright red, and subspecies are separated by the color of the cheek patch. The northern subspecies has a silvery gray cheek patch, and the central and southern subspecies both have a white cheek patches. Unlike most migratory warblers, male and females of tropical resident warblers like the Red Warbler look the same.
Addendum: BCR 124: Janet Moore, Janet Stein, Seeing Red
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