Huzzah Conservation Area is located in Crawford County. The area consists of 6,225 acres. Rugged forest terrain, the Meramec River and Huzzah and Courtois Creeks draw many visitors to this area.
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Status
Name
Species of Conservation Concern
Scientific Name
Setophaga cerulea (formerly Dendroica cerulea)
Family
Parulidae (New World wood-warblers) in the order Passeriformes
Description
Upperparts of cerulean warbler males are blue, with black streaks on the back and two white wing bars. The underparts are white, with a dark blue band on the upper breast and a necklace of short blue streaks on the sides of the breast. The female is paler, greenish or turquoise-blue above, with a white eyebrow and two white wing bars. The underparts are all white, with a yellowish wash, and with obscure gray streaking along the sides.
Juveniles are brownish gray above, with a pale center crown stripe and entirely white underparts. Cerulean warblers molt into an adult plumage prior to the breeding season following their hatching year.
Because the cerulean warbler often remains concealed in foliage high in the forest canopy, it is usually best identified by its voice, a rapid series of buzzy notes on one pitch, with a rising "zeeeeee" at the end. The call is a sweet "chip."
Similar species: About 40 species of warblers occur in Missouri, this is the only with with a blue-gray back and dark-streaked white or whitish flanks. Note that one of the songs of the northern parula may closely resemble the song of the cerulean warbler.
Size
Length: 4¾ inches (tip of bill to tip of tail); wingspan 7½ to 8 inches.
Where To Find
In central and south Missouri, and in two locations in Mercer and Grundy counties. In the spring, watch for cerulean warblers migrating through the Mississippi River Valley.
Habitat and Conservation
Cerulean warblers forage in bottomland and moist slope forests with uneven canopies of scattered large trees (sycamores, ashes, and oaks) and midsized understory trees (green ash and box elder). Their nests are built higher than those of other warblers.
Because of its small population and significant declines, this species has may end up on the federal Endangered Species list. Conservation includes habitat preservation and improvement in the United States and in South America.
Food
Cerulean warblers pick insects and other invertebrates from the bark of trees, using their efficient, pointy, tweezerlike bills. These warblers of the treetops catch flying insects and nest in tall elms, maples, and basswoods near water.
Status
A Missouri species of conservation concern, considered rare and imperiled in our state.
A summer resident, it is more common in the southeastern Ozarks but is rare elsewhere in the state. Its total numbers are small and have been declining.
Causes for the decline start with habitat loss, both in the overwintering habitat south of the U.S. border, and right here, where fragmentation of formerly large, unbroken tracts of forest make cerulean warblers vulnerable to nest parasitism by cowbirds.
Life Cycle
Life Cycle
After spending the winter in mountain forests of South America, in spring, they migrate to the central and northeastern US and into Canada, arriving in Missouri in mid-April. The compact, shallow nest is about 3 inches wide and made of shredded bark, spiderwebs, lichens, and mosses. Nests are 15-90 feet above the ground. The 3-5 eggs hatch in 12-13 days. Only the female incubates the eggs, but both sexes feed the young. Pairs raise a single brood and depart Missouri in September for the winter.
Human Connections
Its blue color makes it hard to see against the sky, providing a challenge to birders, who recognize it first for its distinctive buzzy voice, then hunt for it with binoculars. Seen or unseen, it spends its days snatching thousands of insects humans find bothersome.
Because much of this species' decline is due to loss of habitat in its overwintering territory in the northern Andes, where coffee is a major crop, this is one of the birds you are helping when you purchase shade-grown coffee. The traditional agricultural technique of growing coffee trees among mature forest allows the native habitat, and these birds, to survive. Other forms of coffee farming, which destroy mature forests, may produce higher yields in the short term, but the world pays the price in the decline and loss of species.
In the United States, habitat loss has been a problem for cerulean warblers, too. Cowbirds deposit their eggs in the nests of unrelated species (including cerulean warblers), and the parasitized birds unwittingly raise the cowbird young to the detriment (and usually the deaths) of their own offspring. Birds native to open habitats, or wooded-margin habitats, usually can recognize the cowbird eggs and take measures against them. But because cowbirds don't live deep in unbroken tracts of forests, birds like cerulean warblers have not developed defenses against nest predation. Cerulean warblers only have one brood a year, and if that's a bust, they don't get another opportunity to breed until the following year. When people create openings in forests (for homes, for businesses, for highways, and so on), they expand places where cowbirds can live, and reduce safe nesting space for birds like the cerulean warbler.
Ecosystem Connections
Most warblers specialize in eating insects from the bark of tree trunks and branches. Like woodpeckers, these birds help check populations of wood-eating insects that might otherwise cause great harm to our forest trees.
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Media Gallery
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Credit
MDF
Right to Use
Photo by MDF, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation
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Caption
This species is rare and imperiled in our state and may soon be declared federally endangered.
Credit
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station Archive, USDA Forest Service, SRS, Bugwood.org
Right to Use
Photo by USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station Archive, USDA Forest Service, SRS, Bugwood.org, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation
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Where to See Species
An initial donation in 1975 by Charlie Heath, a longtime resident and sportsman established this area.
About Birds in Missouri
About 350 species of birds are likely to be seen in Missouri, though nearly 400 have been recorded within our borders. Most people know a bird when they see one — it has feathers, wings, and a bill. Birds are warm-blooded, and most species can fly. Many migrate hundreds or thousands of miles. Birds lay hard-shelled eggs (often in a nest), and the parents care for the young. Many communicate with songs and calls.