No Place Like Home

Minnesota is the North American home to nearly half of the global population of breeding male Golden-winged Warblers. Once you consider the 99% pairing success and high productivity, Minnesota is likely home to well over half of the global population when you include females, nestlings, and fledglings. Barring some catastrophic management debacle that destroys their breeding areas and invites Blue-winged Warbler range expansion, the future of this species is strong in Minnesota. This fledgling has been sampled for lab work by our collaborators in the Dave Westneat lab (photo by Gunnar Kramer).