Small warbler with a thin, pointy bill. Generally yellow-olive overall with a faint eyeline. Birds in the West are brighter than birds in the East, but the undertail coverts are always yellow.
Immature birds often grayer than adults. Head color varies regionally from gray in the East to yellow-green in the West, but they all have yellow undertail coverts (not visible in this photo). Note broken eyering and faint eyeline.
Forages for insects on the ground and in trees. Pokes through leaf litter, and probes bark and moss with the sharp, fine-tipped bill.
Western birds are brighter yellow-green with faint blurry streaking on the breast. Note thin, pointy bill and yellow undertail coverts.
Generally yellow-olive overall, but head color varies regionally from gray in the East to yellow-green in the West. Note broken eyering bisected by a faint eyeline.
Flits rapidly through shrubs, trees, vine tangles, and other vegetation as it glean insects from leaves and buds.
Adults have an orangish crown patch that is usually concealed and difficult to see.
Gray-headed subspecies has a grayer head, but note faint eyeline, thin, pointy bill, and yellow undertail coverts.
Orange-crowned Warblers supplement their diet with fruit and nectar during the winter. Sometimes visits fruit, suet, and hummingbird feeders.
Dull yellow-olive overall with a thin, pointy bill. Head color varies regionally from gray in the East to yellow-green in the West, but they all have yellow undertail coverts.
Populations on the Channel Islands and nearby mainland tend to have streaky breasts and undertail coverts. Note thin, pointy bill.
Click on an image to compare
Orange-crowned Warblers are small songbirds. Compared with other warblers, they have noticeably thin, sharply pointed bills. They have short wings and short, square tails.
Slightly larger than a Ruby-crowned Kinglet; slightly smaller than a Yellow-rumped Warbler.
sparrow-sized or smallerOrange-crowned Warblers of the Pacific slope are quite bright, even yellowish, and can be readily confused with Yellow Warblers (see Similar Species). The stripe over the eye (superciliary) is always yellow, as are their underparts, and the blurry olive streaks contrast more strongly than in other forms of the species. In the Interior West, Orange-crowned Warblers usually have gray heads. Though some may have yellow-green heads, they still usually contrast fairly obviously with a brighter olive back. These birds may have white or yellow superciliaries. The largest subspecies, sordida, occurs only on the Channel Islands of California.
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