Mangrove Yellow Warbler
- Family
- Parulidae
- Conservation status (IUCN)
- Least Concern (2021) 6
Where and when to see the Mangrove Yellow Warbler
DraftOn the Yucatán Peninsula
On the mainland it lives only in coastal mangroves, all year round. Watch the mangrove edge and listen for its song; on Cozumel the local form also uses scrub.
Where it’s reported most
- San GervasioCozumel, Quintana Roo
- HolboxLázaro Cárdenas, Quintana Roo
- El Corchito ReserveProgreso, Yucatán
- CelestúnCelestún, Yucatán
When
All year
Reported all year.
Reports relative to effort
- January: 69%
- February: 69%
- March: 74%
- April: 79%
- May: 76%
- June: 87%
- July: 100%
- August: 98%
- September: 89%
- October: 79%
- November: 66%
- December: 75%
Data: eBird and other datasets via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), 2015–2026 · Base map: Natural Earth
Field notes
- Identification
- A small, bright yellow warbler with yellow-edged wings and tail. On the peninsula’s mainland the male has a deep chestnut hood and thin reddish streaks on the breast; the female is paler, with at most a touch of chestnut on the face. Cozumel’s males have only a rufous crown and broader streaks.
- Voice
- Its song is much like the migrant Yellow Warbler’s, though simpler and slower in some populations. It also gives a short, sharp chip, especially around the nest and territory.
What the photo doesn’t show
DraftTwo voices in the mangroves
Unlike most North American warblers, the female sings too, and a pair will sometimes sing together in a duet. The migrant Yellow Warbler that breeds in the north doesn’t duet. 1,2
At home all year
A study at Celestún in 2001–2003 found pairs holding their territories all year. They nested from mid-April to late July, when insects were most plentiful, and predators took most of the nests: only 18–33% succeeded. 3,4
The Cozumel puzzle
Cozumel has its own form, rufivertex, with only a rufous crown, which lives in scrub and at mangrove edges but not in pure mangrove. In 2014 birders found warblers with a full chestnut hood, like the mainland birds, in Cozumel’s mangroves, where none had been recorded before. They mix traits of both forms, and their origin is still unknown. 5
No mangroves, no warbler
It depends on mangroves, and their loss is probably its biggest threat: along the coast they are cleared for tourism, towns and shrimp farms, and rising seas and stronger storms erode them. Its only global rating, Least Concern, dates from before the split, when it was lumped with the abundant migrant Yellow Warbler. 1,6
Sources
- American Bird Conservancy: Mangrove Yellow Warbler (opens in a new tab)
- Birds of the World (Cornell Lab): Mangrove Yellow Warbler (opens in a new tab)
- Salgado-Ortiz et al. 2008, The Auk 125(2): 402–410 (opens in a new tab)
- Salgado-Ortiz et al. 2009, Ornitología Neotropical 20(2) (opens in a new tab)
- Huitzil 18(1): 71–80 (opens in a new tab)
- BirdLife International, Data Zone: Setophaga petechia (opens in a new tab)
Map and months: 7,418 records from 2015–2026 from eBird, Inventario de aves y mamíferos en humedales de Laguna de Términos y Pantanos de Centla en Tabasco y Campeche, and others, via GBIF.org (CC BY 4.0), in 0.1° squares (about 10 km). eBird: doi.org/10.15468/aomfnb.
Months: the species’ records ÷ all bird records that month, scaled to the busiest month. It allows for birding effort; it is not the chance of seeing it. A blank square: few or no reports, not necessarily absent.
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