Northern Parula

Setophaga americana · Warblers

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.

Northern Parula, upside down

Green-Wood Cemetery, 28 September 2025

A Northern Parula working the underside of a twig upside down at Green-Wood in late September, an ordinary foraging posture for a species that spends much of its life gleaning insects from the tips of thin branches. It breeds in the moss-hung forests of the Northeast and passes through the city on its way to the Caribbean.

The yellow-green patch saddling the back is the field mark that gives this one away even from behind. No other regularly occurring warbler carries it.

Northern Parula

Central Park, 21 September 2025

A Northern Parula in Central Park in September, on its way from the northern woods to the Caribbean. It breeds in the moss-hung forests of the Northeast and Canada and passes through the city's parks twice a year, and it is one of the smallest warblers to do so.

Blue-grey above, yellow at the throat, with two crisp white wing bars, and the blurred wingtip shows how little it sits still while foraging. Parulas nest almost exclusively in hanging strands of old man's beard lichen in the north and Spanish moss in the south, and are simply absent from good forest where neither grows.