Black-throated Gray Warbler, Setophaga nigrescens

Black-throated Gray Warbler, Setophaga nigrescens halseii. Photograph taken within a residential community in Hereford, Arizona, December 2006. Photograph and identification courtesy of Bob Behrstock, Sierra Vista, Arizona (naturewideimages.com).

Black-throated Gray Warbler, Setophaga nigrescens nigrescens. Photograph taken within a residential community in Alamos, Sonora, December 2018. Photograph and identification courtesy of David F Smith, Alamos, Sonora.

Black-throated Gray Warbler, Setophaga nigrescens nigrescens. Photograph taken within a residential community in Alamos, Sonora, January 2019. Photograph and identification courtesy of David F Smith, Alamos, Sonora.

Black-throated Gray Warbler, Setophaga nigrescens nigrescens, Female. Photograph taken within a residential community in Alamos, Sonora, February 2019. Photograph and identification courtesy of David F Smith, Alamos, Sonora.

The Black-throated Gray Warbler, Setophaga nigrescens halseii and Sttophaga nigrescens nigrescens, are the two subspecies of the Black-throated Gray Warbler that are mid-sized members of the Parulidae Family of New World Warblers, which has one hundred eleven individual species that have been placed into eighteen genera, and one of thirty-four global members of the Setophaga Genus. They are known in Mexico as reinita gris.

The Black-throated Gray Warbler has black, white and gray plumage with a very small yellow spot on the lores. Adult males have a black head and throat interrupted by broad white areas and have gray underparts with black streaks on the back and two white wing-bars. The females are similar in color but duller and their chin is white and the black throat patch is mixed with white. Their bills are black and become slightly brown in the fall; their iris is brown, and, their legs and feet are black to dusky brown, with the soles of the toes being dull yellow. They are primarily found in thorn scrub and willow along dry washes, riparian gallery forest, mangrove, second-growth areas, tropical evergreen forest, thorn forest, tropical deciduous forest, oak and pine-oak woodland, and pine-oak-fir woodland at mid-elevations between 600 m (2,000 feet) and 3,000 m (9,800 feet). They forage by gleaning, with their diets consisting almost exclusively of insects. Their life spans are unknown. The Black-throated Gray Warbler has been poorly studied and very limited information about their behavioral patterns and biology has been documented.

The Black-throated Gray Warbler breeds in extreme northwest Mexico and is a short to medium distance migrant that winters in Mexico. The halseii subspecies is found in Baja California, Baja California Sur and northeast Sonora. The nigrescens subspecies is found in western Mexico on the Pacific Slope, and the interior from southern Sonora, Durango, Zacatecas and Coahuila south to Oaxaca.

From a conservation perspective the Black-throated Gray Warbler is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. They can be found in close proximity to human developments.