Family: Parulidae, Wood Warblers view all from this family

Description 4 1/4-5" (11-13 cm). Adult male has black crown, nape, ear patch, throat, and bib, and olive green back. Face and breast bright yellow; sides heavily streaked with black; white belly. Wings and tail dusky, with 2 white wing bars and white outer tail feathers. In winter, in male, female, and immature, black bib is replaced by dark streaking and black elsewhere becomes dusky olive.

Habitat Coniferous forests; in old stands of Douglas firs, where it forages in the upper canopy.

Nesting 3-5 white eggs, wreathed and speckled with brownish markings, in a well-concealed shallow cup in a conifer.

Range Breeds from Alaska and British Columbia to northern Washington; Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Winters from southwestern California southward.

Voice   A rising series of notes, usually with 2 phrases, the first repeated 3 or 4 times, the second once or twice: weazy weazy weazy weazy twea or dee dee dee-de de. Call is a soft chip.

Discussion This warbler is a darker counterpart of the Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendroica virens), which breeds east of the Rocky Mountains. The pattern of Townsend's plumage is similar to that of the Hermit, Black-throated Gray, and Golden-cheeked (Dendroica chrysoparia) warblers; all these warblers are believed to have developed from one ancestral stock.