Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Dur­ing the sum­mer months Den­droica chrysoparia has a very nar­row breed­ing range on the Ed­wards Plateau, Lam­pasas Cut-Plain, and Llano Up­lift re­gions of cen­tral Texas. The bird mi­grates in the win­ter months to the high­lands of Guatemala, Hon­duras, and Nicaragua.

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • native
• neotropical
  • native

Habi­tat

The golden-cheeked war­bler is an ex­treme habi­tat spe­cial­ist that re­quires stands of ma­ture Ashe ju­niper to build its nest. Dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son the birds in­habit wood­lands con­tain­ing a ma­jor­ity of Ashe ju­niper along with other trees such as Texas Oak, Sca­ley Bark Oak, and Plateau Live Oak. Den­droica chrysoparia spends win­ters in pine-oak for­est.

• Terrestrial Biomes
• forest

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

The war­bler was named for the dis­tinc­tive plumage on its face. The golden-cheeked war­bler is the only North Amer­i­can war­bler with ra­di­ant yel­low cheeks out­lined in black. This char­ac­ter­is­tic is pre­sent on both the fe­male and the male though they are sex­u­ally di­mor­phic. The male golden-cheeked war­bler has a more dis­tinctly marked plumage than the fe­males. A thin black line goes through each dark brown eye and ex­tends to the back of the head. The upper breast and throat are black, while the lower breast and belly are white with black streaks. The upper and lower mandibles, legs, and feet are black. The wings of Den­droica chrysoparia are black­ish with two white wing­bars.

Fe­male D. chrysoparia looks sim­i­lar to the males, but they have a less daz­zling plumage. The back of the adult fe­male is dark olive-green with thin black streaks. The cheeks are yel­low­ish, but a duller shade than the males. The ju­ve­niles are sim­i­lar in col­or­ing to the fe­males.

• Other Physical Features
• endothermic
• bilateral symmetry

Re­pro­duc­tion

The fe­male golden-cheeked war­bler spends ap­prox­i­mately 4 days in early April build­ing a com­pact nest com­prised of Ashe ju­niper bark strips bound with spi­der webs and grass. Fe­males usu­ally place their nests in the upper two-thirds of nest trees. Ashe ju­niper is the most com­mon nest tree for the golden-cheeked war­bler, but the nests can also be found in oaks, wal­nuts, pecans, and bald cy­press. Fe­males lay clutches of 3-4 creamy white eggs speck­led with brown. In­cu­ba­tion is done by the fe­male and lasts 12 days. Dur­ing in­cu­ba­tion D. chrysoparia spends at least 75% of day­light hours on the nest.

Golden-cheeked war­bler hatch­lings are fed by both the male and the fe­male. Fledg­ing oc­curs at about 9 days. The fledg­lings de­pend upon their par­ents for at least 4 weeks after leav­ing the nest.

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• oviparous

Lifes­pan/Longevity

• Average lifespan
  Status: wild

  48 months

  Bird Banding Laboratory

Be­hav­ior

The war­bler mi­grates to its win­ter home be­tween the pe­riod of July-Oc­to­ber. The male golden-cheeked war­blers ar­rive in their cen­tral Texas breed­ing grounds in early March about 5 days be­fore young males and fe­males. Dur­ing this pe­riod, males mark ter­ri­to­ries and begin to ex­hibit them­selves vo­cally by "chip" noises in prepa­ra­tion for the ar­rival of the fe­males. These "chip" noises are used for more than just at­tract­ing fe­males. Golden-cheeked war­blers use sin­gle "chip" or "dou­ble-chip" notes as alarm calls.

The fe­male is con­sid­ered shy and sel­dom no­ticed ex­cept when in­trud­ers such as fox squir­rels, opos­sums, and scrub jays dis­turb the nest. But the male war­bler is by no means shy. He is often seen for­ag­ing and singing from sunup to sun­down.

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• motile

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• acoustic
• chemical

Food Habits

The golden-cheeked war­bler is en­tirely in­sec­tiv­o­rous. Prey items in­clude bee­tles, soft-bod­ied cater­pil­lars, deer flies, and spi­ders. The war­bler spends most of its time for­ag­ing on foot mov­ing from branch to branch pick­ing in­sects from the fo­liage. It for­ages in the upper two-thirds of its habi­tat.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

The golden-cheeked war­bler is a beau­ti­ful bird that could be en­joyed by bird watch­ers.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Im­ple­ment­ing con­ser­va­tion steps for the golden-cheeked war­bler will cost tax­pay­ers money. Money will also be lost by pre­serv­ing the land for the war­bler in­stead of using it for homes and in­dus­tries.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Den­droica chrysoparia was listed as en­dan­gered in May 1990. The pop­u­la­tion in 1974 was es­ti­mated at 15,000 in­di­vid­u­als. In 1990 only an es­ti­mated 2,200 to 4,600 birds re­mained. The dras­tic de­cline in the golden-cheeked war­bler is due pri­mar­ily to loss of ma­ture Ashe ju­niper habi­tat. The ex­pan­sion of the cities of Austin, San An­to­nio, and Waco has had a se­ri­ous im­pact.

To stop the de­cline of golden-cheeked war­bler habi­tat, many con­ser­va­tion mea­sures are being im­ple­mented. The Bal­cones Canyon­lands Con­ser­va­tion Plan (BCCP) is a con­ser­va­tion plan that sets up pre­serves for the golden-cheeked war­bler. An­other habi­tat preser­va­tion step is the es­tab­lish­ment of the Bal­cones Canyon­lands Na­tional Wildlife Refuge. The refuge wants to add at least 41,000 acres onto its al­ready 3,500 acre area for golden-cheeked war­bler breed­ing habi­tat.

An­other threat to the war­bler is the brown-headed cow­bird. The cow­bird ex­hibits brood par­a­sitism on the war­bler by lay­ing eggs in golden-cheeked war­bler nests. The cow­bird eggs hatch two days be­fore the war­blers giv­ing them the ad­van­tage over the golden-cheeked war­bler hatch­lings. The cow­bird young de­velop more rapidly than the golden-cheeked war­bler young. This en­ables the cow­bird to take more than an equal share of food brought to the nest.

The in­crease in cow­bird pop­u­la­tions is due to human con­ver­sion of forests into farms and pas­tures. Today the cow­bird poses a major threat to the species it par­a­sitizes.

• IUCN Red List

  Endangered
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Endangered
  More information

• US Federal List

  Endangered

• CITES

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Nichol Stout (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

Bent, Arthur. 1963. Life His­to­ries of North Amer­i­can Wood War­blers. Dover Pub­li­ca­tions, Inc. New York, N.Y.

Ehrlich, Paul, David Dobkin, Dar­ryl Wheye. 1988. The Birder's Hand­book.

Ehrlich, Paul, David Dobkin, Dar­ryl Wheye. 1992. Birds in Jeop­ardy.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice. 1992. Golden-cheeked-war­bler re­cov­ery plan. United States Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice. Austin, TX.