The only other wood-warbler with an orange throat is the flame-throated warbler of Central America, which is very distinctive, lacking the contrasting blackish streaking about the head and whitish underside of a male Blackburnian.

Genetic research has shown that their close living relative is the bay-breasted warbler, the latter species perhaps specialized to forage in the same coniferous trees at lower levels.

[9][10][11] Blackburnian warblers are solitary during winter, highly territorial on their breeding grounds, and do not mix with other passerine species outside of the migratory period.

[13] They may help control the spruce budworm (often considered a harmful pest) when breakouts occur, at the local if not at epidemic level.

However, their distribution as a breeding species continues broadly down much of New England and the Appalachian Mountains, from New York to northernmost Georgia, in elevated mixed woodlands, especially ones containing spruce and hemlocks.

[18] It typically winters in tropical montane forests, from roughly 600 to 2,500 m (2,000 to 8,200 ft), mainly from Colombia to Peru, more sporadically in Panama and the Amazon region.

[19][20][21] Blackburnian warblers begin their first clutches in mid-May to early June in the contiguous United States and about 1 to 2 weeks later in Quebec.

[23] Nests usually constructed outwardly with twigs, bark, plant fibers, and rootlets; lined with lichens, mosses, fine grasses, hair, dead pine needles, and even occasionally such exotic substances as string, willow cotton, horsehair, and cattail down.

[25][26] Blue jays and American red squirrels have been verified to prey on nestlings and new fledglings, while a merlin was recorded killing a brooding adult female.