Lucy’s warbler at nest hole in Arizona (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

15 May 2026

Of the 56 species of wood warblers in North America, only two nest in cavities: the prothonotary warbler in eastern North America and Lucy’s warbler in the West. Last June I wrote about prothonotary warblers.

Prothonotary Warbler (Wikimedia)

Now let’s explore the nesting habits of the West’s cavity nesting warbler.

Lucy’s warbler on mesquite (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Lucy’s warbler (Leiothlypis luciae) is the smallest and palest of the wood-warbler family. Named for Lucy Hunter Baird, the daughter of ornithologist Spencer Fullerton Baird, it is closely related to:

• Virginia’s warbler (western US) 
• Nashville warbler (eastern and parts of western North America) and
• Colima warbler (mostly in Mexico).

(See a photo of Lucy with her parents, here.)

It breeds in the American Southwest and northern Mexico and winters on Mexico’s Pacific coast.

Range map of Lucy’s warbler (from Wikimedia Commons)

Lucy’s has been called both the “mesquite warbler” and the “desert warbler” because it prefers riparian mesquite habitat and, according to Birds of the World, “nests almost entirely in the hot lower Sonoran desert of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It occupies the driest habitat of the 4 southwestern lowland-breeding warblers.”

Lucy’s will use natural cavities such as woodpecker holes and will also build in nestboxes.

Watch as a pair of Lucy’s warblers build their nest.