Distribution

Breeding Range

Boreal spruce and fir forests of Alaska, Canada, and the ne. U.S. (Figure 1). Northern portion of range is a broad belt extending from Alaska (south of the Brooks Range to the base of the Alaska Peninsula; Armstrong 1980 Armstrong, R. H. (1980). Guide to the birds of Alaska. Anchorage, AK: Alaska NW Publ. Co. Close ), the mouth of Mackenzie River (Yukon; Sinclair et al. 2003), and n. British Columbia (Campbell et al. 2001) east through w. and s. Mackenzie, s. Keewatin, and northern portions of Alberta (south to Banff in Canadian Rockies; Fed. Alberta Naturalists 2007), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (south to roughly 54°N), and Ontario (south to south end of James Bay; http://www.birdsontario.org/atlas/maps.jsp) to central Quebec (south of Ungava Peninsula), central Labrador, Newfoundland, the Maritime Provinces, and the ne. U.S. (Godfrey 1966 Godfrey, W. E. (1966). The birds of Canada. Natl. Mus. Can. Bull. 203. Close , Dunn and Garrett 1997 Dunn, J. L., and K. L. Garrett (1997). A Field Guide to the Warblers of North America. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA, USA. Close ).

Locally distributed in most of its southeastern range, where limited to mountainous areas of e. New York (Adirondacks and Catskills; McGowan and Corwin 2008), ne. Massachusetts (Mt. Greylock; Veit and Petersen 1993 Veit, R. R., and W. R. Petersen (1993). The Birds of Massachusetts. Massachussetts Audubon Society, Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA. Close ), Vermont (Green Mtns.; Laughlin and Kibbe 1985 Laughlin, S. P., and D. P. Kibbe (1985). The Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont. University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, USA. Close ), and New Hampshire (White Mtns.; Foss 1994a Foss, C. R. (1994). Atlas of Breeding Birds in New Hampshire. Arcadia Publishing, Mount Pleasant, SC, USA. Close ), n. and se. Maine, se. Quebec (Laurentides Provincial Park to Gaspe Peninsula; Cyr and Larivee 1995a Cyr, A., and J. Larivee (1995). Atlas Saisonnier des Oiseaux du Quebec. Les Presses de l'Universidad de Sherbrooke et la Societe de Loisir Ornithologique de l'Estrie, Inc., Sherbrooke, QC, Canada. Close ), n. and sw. New Brunswick, and sw. and n. Nova Scotia (including Cape Breton I.) (Erskine 1992a Erskine, A. J. (1992). Atlas of Breeding Birds of the Maritime Provinces. Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax, NS, Canada. Close ; http://www.mba-aom.ca/jsp/map.jsp?lang=en ). Breeding areas in New York and s. Nova Scotia are fairly disjunct from the rest of the range (http://www.dec.ny.gov/cfmx/extapps/bba/bbaMaps.cfm?bndcode=BLBW&order=2&year=2000&comp=0 ).

Local breeding documented in the late 1980s and early 1990s in areas south of the main range: central Manitoba (Duck Mtns.; Walley 1989a Walley, W. J. (1989a). Breeding Blackpoll Warblers, Dendroica striata, in Duck Mountain Provincial Park, Manitoba. Canadian Field-Naturalist 103:396-397. Close ) and ne. Pennsylvania (Wyoming and Sullivan Cos.; Gross 1994 Gross, D. A. (1994). Discovery of a Blackpoll Warbler (Dendroica striata) nest, a first for Pennsylvania - Wyoming County. Pennsylvania Birds 8:128-132. Close ). Adults feeding mobile young in nw. Oregon (Multomah Co.) in Jul 1976 suggests an isolated breeding event far from the normal range (Gilligan et al. 1994 Gilligan, J. D., M. Rogers, A. Smith, and A. Contreras (1994). Birds of Oregon: Status and Distribution. Cinclus Publications, McMinnville, Oregon, USA. Close ).

Abundant throughout most of its range, but local in mountains of the ne. U.S., where generally found above 600 m (Able and Noon 1976 Able, K. P. and B. R. Noon. (1976). Avian community structure along elevational gradients in the northeastern United States. Oecologia 26:275-294. Close , Morse 1979a Morse, D. H. (1979a). Habitat use by the Blackpoll Warbler. Wilson Bulletin 91:234-243. Close , Laughlin and Kibbe 1985 Laughlin, S. P., and D. P. Kibbe (1985). The Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont. University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, USA. Close ). Also found in alder thickets and second growth, especially in northern and western parts of the range.

Winter Range

Generally found below 3,000 m in edges and second growth in n. South America east of the Andes (see Figure 2). Occurs from nw. Colombia, e. Ecuador, e. Peru, and n. Bolivia; east through Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, the Guianas (where scarce), and nw. Brazil (Amazonas, Roraima); to the mouth of the Amazon River (Sick 1993 Sick, H. (1993). Birds in Brazil: A Natural History. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA. Close , Paynter 1995 Paynter, R. A., Jr. (1995). Nearctic Passerine Migrants in South America. Publications of the Nuttall Ornithological Club 25, Cambridge, MA, USA. Close ). Most common in the central portion of this range, and may occur along the northern coast primarily as a migrant (Bosque and Lentino 1987 Bosque, C., and M. Lentino (1987). The passage of North American migratory land birds through xerophytic habitats on the western coast of Venezuela. Biotropica 19:267–273. Close , Pashley 2010). Numerous sight records suggest that small numbers may also winter from se. coastal Brazil to ne. Argentina, and possibly se. Paraguay (Sick 1971 Sick, H. (1971). Blackpoll Warbler on winter Quarters in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Wilson Bulletin 83:198-200. Close , Paynter 1995 Paynter, R. A., Jr. (1995). Nearctic Passerine Migrants in South America. Publications of the Nuttall Ornithological Club 25, Cambridge, MA, USA. Close , Greg Campbell pers. comm.). Small numbers recorded south of main range to 40°S in Chile and Argentina, the southernmost records for any migrant North American warbler (Dunn and Garrett 1997 Dunn, J. L., and K. L. Garrett (1997). A Field Guide to the Warblers of North America. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA, USA. Close ). Two January and one March record from Bermuda suggest overwintering there (Amos 1991 Amos, E. J. R. (1991). A Guide to the Birds of Bermuda. Corncrake, Warwick, Bermuda. Close ).

Because the species migrates late, Dec records from e. U.S. are probably migrants rather than wintering birds, although there is a record of one visiting a feeder in Nova Scotia from 1 Jan to 4 Feb 1969 (Tufts 1986 Tufts, R. W. (1986). Birds of Nova Scotia. 3rd edition. Nimbus Publishing, Ltd. and Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax, NS, Canada. Close ). Dec and early Jan sightings from the Greater Antilles and Trinidad and Tobago are also likely lingering fall migrants (Pashley and Martin 1988 Pashley, D. N. and R. P. Martin. (1988). The contribution of Christmas Bird Counts to knowledge of the winter distribution of migratory warblers in the Neotropics. American Birds 42:1164-1176. Close , McNair et al. 1996 McNair, D. B., W. J. Arendt and E. Massiah. (1996). Sightings of the Blackpoll Warbler in the West Indies during winter. Florida Field Naturalist 24:81-82. Close ), although the possibility of occasional wintering should not be discounted.

Extralimital Records

Casual in fall (Sep–Oct) in Greenland (several records), Iceland (6), the British Isles (26), and islands off the coast of ne. France (2; Dubois and Homologation 1991 Dubois, P. J. and N. Com Homologation. (1991). List of rare birds in France in 1990. Alauda 59:225247. Close , Curson et al. 1994 Curson, J., D. Quinn, and D. Beadle (1994). Warblers of the Americas: an Identification Guide. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, NY, USA. Close ).

Completion of second-generation Breeding Bird Atlases in eastern portion of range allow comparisons of range between early 1980s and early 2000s. No significant changes were noted in New York (McGowan and Corwin 2008), Vermont (VCE unpubl. data), Massachusetts (Mass Audubon, unpubl. data), or Maritime Canada (BSC, unpubl. data), although in the latter atlas it appears the species may have colonized Prince Edward Island. In the White Mountains, New Hampshire, the lower elevational range has shifted down slope since 1993 despite an upslope migration of northern hardwoods and some low elevation birds (WVD). Although significant, the actual change in elevation was small and may be linked to increased basal area of balsam fir in the transition zone. The second Ontario Atlas detected a 44% increase in probability of detection (Cadman et al. 2007), primarily in the Hudson Bay Lowlands where the higher detection may be an artifact of higher survey effort. Extralimital breeding in Pennsylvania continued into the 2000s (Gross 2010), but has not been documented to date in Manitoba (BSC, unpubl. data).