Overview
Lucy's Warblers are small and gray. Definitive Basic (adult) plumage uniformly gray above and off-white or buffy white below, with contrasting rufous crown-patch and rufous rump and uppertail-coverts, short-notched largely unmarked tail (which it flicks), and small finely pointed bill. Lacks clearly marked wing-bars; rufous crown and rump often not seen; best seen in courting or otherwise excited birds. Female crown-patch paler rufous, lacking, or relatively diffuse. Sexes usually indistinguishable in the field, however. Juveniles and immatures generally paler, lacking crown-patch and having "relatively distinct, buffy-white wing bars". Often have indistinct eye-ring or line over eye; dark eye stands out against lack of distinguishing marks on side of head.
References cited in Species Profile
- Bailey, F. M. 1904. Handbook of birds of the western United States. 2nd ed. Riverside Press, Cambridge, MA.
- Bent, A. C. 1953. Life histories of North American wood warblers. U.S. Natl. Mus. Bull. 203.
- Brandt, H. 1951. Arizona and its bird life. Bird Research Fdn. Cleveland, OH.
- Brewster, W. 1882. On a collection of birds lately made by Mr. F. Stephens in Arizona.Bull. Nuttall Ornithol. Club 7:65-86.
- Gilman, M. F. 1909. Nesting notes on the Lucy Warbler. Condor 11:166-168.
- Johnson, R. R., L. T. Haight, and J. M. Simpson. 1987. Endangered habitats versus endangered species: a management challenge. Pages 89-96 in Management and preservation of endangered birds in riparian riparian
Definition of riparian habitat or riparian areas.
Learn more about riparian ecosystems. (Laymon, S. A., Ed.) West. Birds 18. - Johnson, R. Roy, Helen K. Yard and Bryan T. Brown. 2012. Lucy's Warbler (Oreothlypis luciae), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/318
- Knopf, F. L., R. R. Johnson, T. Rich, F. B. Samson, and R. C. Szaro. 1988. Conservation of riparian ecosystems in the United States. Wilson Bull. 100:272-274.
- Moody, D. T. 1970. A method for obtaining food samples from insectivorous birds. Auk 87:579.
- Morse, D. H. 1989. American warblers: an ecological and behavioral perspective. Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, MA.
- Otahal, C.D. 2006. Lucy's Warbler (Vermivora luciae). In The Draft Desert Bird Conservation Plan: a strategy for reversing the decline of desert-associated birds in California. California Partners in Flight. http://www.prbo.org/calpif/htmldocs/species/desert/lucys_warbler.htm
- Pyle, P., S. N. G. Howell, R. P. Yunick, and D. F. DeSante. 1987. Identification to North American passerines. Slate Creek Press, Bolinas, CA.
- Rea, A. M. 1983. Once a river: bird life and habitat changes on the middle Gila. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson.