Tropical Parula

Setophaga pitiayumi

The Tropical Parula has had many names, such as Sennett’s Warbler, Olive-Backed Warbler, Pitiayumi Warbler, and Tropical Parula Warbler. In the past, some considered it as the same species as the Northern Parula.

Most researchers recognise nine subspecies of Tropical Parula:

• S. p. nigrilora lives in eastern Mexico and sometimes in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in south Texas.
• S. p. pulchra lives in western Mexico from Sonora south to Oaxaca. Some of the northern breeding birds move south for the winter.
• S. p. insularis lives on islands off the Pacific coast of central Mexico.
• S. p. graysoni is endemic to the island of Socorro in the Revillagigedo Archipelago of Mexico.
• S. p. inornata lives in the highlands of southern Mexico and northern Central America.
• S. p. cirrha lives on islands off the Pacific coast of Panama.
• S. p. pacifica is a resident of South America’s northern Andes Mountains.
• S. p. alarum lives in the highlands of eastern Ecuador and Peru.
• S. p. pitiayumi lives in northern South America and on nearby Caribbean islands.

In February 2017, I visited the island of Socorro in the Revillagigedo Archipelago of Mexico and met the Socorro Parula, a subspecies of the Tropical Parula called S. p. graysoni.