Laura Erickson's For the Birds

The understated but lovely Arctic Warbler nests in northernmost Europe and Asia, with a population nesting in western Alaska; these birds all winter in Southeast Asia. In Alaska, they are often found near the stunted willows of the tundra. They move about quickly between song bouts, so can be hard to track and photograph, though their songs are loud and easy to recognize.

This is the only North American representative of its family, the “leaf warblers,” which all share the understated, dull plumage. In both the Central Yupik and Inupiaq languages of Alaska, the names for Arctic Warbler include the word for gallbladder, possibly because that organ is greenish brown, like the plumage of the bird. Taxonomists had once placed the Arctic Warbler in the Old World warbler family, Sylviidae, but they split the family in 2006, placing Phylloscopidae as a separate family.