The Status and Occurrence of Northern Parula (Setophaga americana) in British Columbia
by Rick Toochin and Don Cecile
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Introduction and Distribution
The Northern Parula (Setophaga americana) is a small passerine in the North American warbler family. This species breeds in Eastern Canada from southern Manitoba, across southern Ontario, through southern Quebec to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (Curson et al. 1994). In the Eastern United States, the Northern Parula is found breeding from Maine south locally through New England, south locally to where they become common again in the Carolina’s, south through Georgia to Florida and west to eastern Texas (Curson et al. 1994, Dunn and Garrett 1997). The Northern Parula spends the winter in southern Florida, Cuba, the Bahamas, throughout the West Indies, and in the Greater Antilles and Northern Lesser Antilles; but is rare in the Southern Antilles (Curson et al. 1994, Dunn and Garrett 1997). This species is also rare in Bermuda in the winter (Curson et al. 1994, Dunn and Garrett 1997). The Northern Parula also winters in eastern Mexico on the Yucatan Peninsula south to Nicaragua and Costa Rica with birds occasionally being found on Los Roques Island off Venezuela and Panama (Curson et al. 1994, Dunn and Garrett 1997).
In migration this species can turn up well west of its core range; there are records scattered throughout the Great Plains and the mid-western part of North America (Dunn and Garrett 1997). This species is a rare but increasingly regular vagrant in Europe with records for Greenland, four records for Iceland, fifteen records for Great Britain and one record for France (Lewington et al. 1992, Dunn and Garrett 1997).
Along the west coast of North America, the Northern Parula has increased in occurrence but is still considered a casual vagrant (Curson et al. 1994). The only place on the west coast where Northern Parula is not considered a rarity is California (Hamilton et al. 2007). The species is no longer on the California Bird Committee review list as there are well over 900 records for the state and the species is considered annual each year (Hamilton et al. 2007). The Northern Parula has been found breeding in coastal California in Marin County, to Santa Barbara County and also in the San Bernardino Mountains in southern California (Dunn and Garrett 1997). In Oregon, the Northern Parula is no longer on the State Review list for the Oregon Bird Records Committee with over thirty state records (OFO 2012). In Washington State, there are thirteen accepted records for the State (Wahl et al. 2005, WBRC 2012). There is one fall sight record for Alaska (West 2008). In British Columbia, the Northern Parula is still an accidental species with fifteen records for the Province (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1).
Occurrence and Documentation
There are fifteen records of Northern Parula for British Columbia with only three coming from the interior of the Province. The bulk of these are spring records with the remainder occurring in the fall. There are nine records falling within the spring migration period and span from May 17 – June 24 (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). All the records for the period are adult males, usually singing to alert the observer of their presence (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). Birds found in May are vagrant migrants with the June records likely reflecting overshoot birds that were looking for suitable breeding territories and singing to attract a mate. There are five fall records for the period of August 16 – November 21 (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). There is also a summer record of an adult male from late July which could have been a bird that had given up looking for a female and was starting to head south (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). To date there are no winter records for British Columbia (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1).
In British Columbia, the pattern of vagrancy closely follows the established pattern found in California. In California two thirds of the records come from April 6 – July 6, with the peak of records coming from late May and early June (Hamilton et al. 2007). The fall period includes August 29 – November 30 with the peak of occurrence in the latter half of September (Hamilton et al. 2007). This pattern of vagrancy is repeated in Oregon, Washington State and British Columbia. On November 7, 2010, Don Cecile found a male Northern Parula at the Inkaneep Campsite outside Oliver in the south Okanagan and stayed till November 21, 2010 (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). This was the first record for this species in the Okanagan and only the second record for the interior of the Province (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). Since this record, there has been another interior record (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). The Okanagan Northern Parula stayed into late November which makes this sighting the latest recorded date in British Columbia for a Northern Parula (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). There is another November record from Port Alberni, again a male, seen from November 9-14, 1996 (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). Almost all records for British Columbia pertain to male birds (Toochin et al. 2013, see Table 1). This is likely due to the fact that males are easier to detect in the spring, as most of the encountered birds were heard first before being located by an observer (Dunn and Garrett 1997). Given that the Northern Parula is now a rare breeding species in southern California, and records continue to increase in frequency, it is highly probable that there will be more observations of this beautiful little warbler in British Columbia in the future.
