The Nashville Warbler is a small, tidy warbler with a gray head set off by a crisp white eye-ring, an olive-green back, and clean yellow underparts running from throat to undertail. A chestnut crown patch exists but is usually hidden, so the bold "spectacled" look of the white eye-ring against the gray face is the field mark to fix on. Active and often low, it flicks through shrubs and young trees gleaning insects, frequently pumping its tail.
Despite the name — it was first collected near Nashville during migration — this is a northern breeder, nesting in young second-growth woods, bog edges, and brushy clearings across northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. Elsewhere in the state it is a common and welcome migrant in spring and fall, when it turns up in gardens, woodlots, and thickets alongside other warblers. Its brisk, two-part song speeds up at the end into a short trill.
Gleans insects, caterpillars, and spiders from the leaves and twigs of shrubs and young trees, often foraging fairly low and actively. It takes some plant material and nectar-like fluids on migration but is overwhelmingly insectivorous through the breeding season.
No. It merely passes through Tennessee on migration, where the first specimen was collected and named. It actually breeds across the northern U.S. and Canada, including northern Michigan.
A gray head with a bold, complete white eye-ring, contrasting with an olive back and bright yellow underparts including the throat. The eye-ring on the gray face gives it a distinctive "spectacled" appearance.
In young second-growth forest, bog and wetland edges, and brushy clearings, mainly in the northern Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula. Farther south it is seen chiefly as a migrant.
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