The Blue-winged Warbler is a brilliant golden-yellow bird of brushy old fields and shrubby woodland edges, set off by blue-gray wings with two white bars and a thin black line through the eye. Its song is anything but musical — a lazy, buzzy, two-parted "beeee-bzzzz," as if the bird were inhaling and then exhaling — but it is distinctive and easy to learn. A bird of early successional habitat, it thrives where farmland is growing back into shrubs and young trees.
The Blue-winged Warbler has been expanding its range northward and now breeds across southern Michigan, and its spread has brought it into contact with the closely related Golden-winged Warbler. The two hybridize readily, producing well-known hybrid forms called "Brewster's" and "Lawrence's" Warblers, and there is concern that the more aggressive Blue-winged is contributing to the decline of the Golden-winged where their ranges overlap. Watching for these hybrids is a favorite challenge in the shrubby fields where both occur.
Gleans caterpillars, insects, and spiders from the leaves and twigs of shrubs and young trees, often probing curled leaves and dangling to reach prey. It forages in the dense low vegetation of old fields and brushy edges where it also nests on or near the ground.
That lazy, two-parted, insect-like buzz — often described as an inhaled then exhaled note — is the Blue-winged Warbler. It is unmusical but distinctive, and it rings from shrubby old fields and edges.
They are hybrids between the Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers, which interbreed where their ranges overlap. "Brewster's" is the more common hybrid form and "Lawrence's" the rarer, each showing a distinctive mix of the parent species' features.
In old fields, brushy edges, and shrubby second growth — early successional habitat where farmland is reverting to young woody cover. It has expanded north and now breeds across southern Michigan.
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