Blackpoll Warbler

My Life
as a

Blackpoll Warbler



My early chick days

I started my life during early July in a nest found up in the
branches of a tamarack tree in Canada’s evergreen forests.

Mama bird built a soft nest made of grass and small twigs
and here I stayed with my 3 baby siblings.

Mama bird caught spiders, ants, gnats, and beetles to feed
me and helped me to grow strong.



The journey begins

One day in October after a cold wind started to blow, I noticed
that Mama Bird no longer had her pretty black cap and that
she had turned a lovely yellow-green color. She told me we
were ready for the trip to our summer home.

Did you know that Blackpoll warblers are very small but we
make the longest journey over water for any songbird. We are
true flying athletes!



How exciting! Little did I know that we would fly for 10 days
and over 4,000 miles to reach a place called North Carolina.
We stayed here for a month to get fat! Our days were quite
busy - we ate and ate!

By November, the cold air was telling us to continue our
journey south. We still had another 1500 miles of flying to
reach our summer home in Columbia.

The final part of our trip took us only about 2 ½ days because
we are very fast! But this part of the trip was almost all over
water! Although I was tired, we never stopped flying - even at
night!

I was sad when we left our summer home and it was a long
journey, but I was happy when we arrived in Columbia
because it was warm and there was lots of new food for us to
eat.

My
New
Home!!

Winter Vacation

We spent the warm winter days enjoying pollen and eating
tasty insects. I knew we had to store more energy for our long
flight north in the spring. Did you know we live up to 10
years? This means I will make my journey many times - as
long as I can survive all the challenges along the way!



Our return journey

By April, it is time for me to return to my summer home. I am
ready but I am nervous for all the problems I might encounter.
Sometimes when we fly at night we become lost because
there are many night lights from cities and lighthouses. This
makes our night flight very difficult.



Home at last

Our spring journey is different because now we will fly over
land to return to our summer home. The hardest part is the
lights at night make our journey difficult. We also struggle to
find enough food as we head north because climate change
has hurt insect populations - so there is less food for us.

And sometimes the forest that we need is cut down so we
don’t have a resting place! Deforestation is terrible for us!

Because of these dangers, mine
is a sad story. Our population size
is almost half of what it used to
be! If people are not careful we
may one day become extinct. And
then our beautiful song will be
gone from the Earth.

My song

The End