Northern Parula
Setophaga americana
Northern Parula · Green-Wood Cemetery · 28 September 2025
A Northern Parula at Green-Wood in late September, one of the smallest wood-warblers in North America, on its way from the mossy forests of the Northeast to the Caribbean. The cemetery's old trees are a stopover for a few days.
One of the more straightforward warblers to identify even in fall plumage: blue-grey above with a yellow-green saddle patch, a yellow throat washing into white lower down, and two crisp white wing bars. Parulas nest almost exclusively in hanging strands of old man's beard lichen, or Spanish moss further south, a habit specific enough that the species is largely absent from forest where neither grows.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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