WatchList Species Account for Red-faced Warbler (Cardinella rubrifrons)

Qualifies for the list as a Rare Yellow List Species

Photo: © Dan Vickers

A ground-nesting bird, the Red-faced Warbler breeds at high elevations in montane fir, pine, and pine-oak forests of Arizona, New Mexico, and western Mexico. The species may be expanding its range; in recent years it has been observed in Colorado. It winters south through the highlands of southern Mexico to El Salvador and Honduras. In the U.S., its populations may be declining slightly, but in Mexico it is virtually unstudied. The prime threat to the species is habitat degradation, to which it is extremely sensitive. Logging in areas where the bird breeds causes a drastic decling and even complete disappearance of the bird from those areas. In a study of a gradient of disturbed plots in forest ranging from clearcut to selectively logged, the birds were present only in the untouched control areas.