The Yellow Warbler
By Tait Johansson
 Many birders find warblers a difficult group of birds to
identify. Fall, when warblers tend to have drab plumages, is the most
challenging season for warbler identification. Even in spring, when their often
colorful breeding plumages make them easier to distinguish, there are so many
species moving through our area in such a short time (often high up in the
trees), people can find themselves overwhelmed by warblers. Summer, when only
breeding warblers are present, can be a good time to start really learning this
group. A good one to start with is one of the most common and conspicuous of our
summer warblers, the Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia).
In summer, Yellow Warblers inhabit extensive open shrubby
areas, especially wet ones. Shrub swamps and overgrown fields are favorite
haunts, and their breeding territories can
even extend into backyards with sufficient dense shrubbery. Here they build a
beautiful little nest from silvery plant fibers, often those of milkweeds.
Although they do sometimes hide from the birder in dense cover, the openness of
their habitat usually makes Yellow Warblers easier to see than warblers that
inhabit tall trees and dense woods.
Like most warblers, this is a small bird, roughly the size of
a chickadee, albeit with a shorter tail. Its bill is of the thin, sharp kind
that typifies most small insect-eating birds. When it comes to plumage, the
Yellow Warbler is aptly named. Although many warblers have at least some yellow
on them, the adults of this species, with the exception of some fine
chestnut streaking on the breast of the male, are all yellow. Yellow Warblers
are sometimes confused with male American Goldfinches, our other common bright
yellow small bird, and another species that often frequents shrubby habitats.
With a good look, though, goldfinches are readily distinguished from Yellow
Warblers by their black wings, black cap, and thick, stubby pinkish bill.
The song is a high, sweet, rhythmic series of notes often
rendered “Sweet-sweet-sweet-I-am-so-sweet!” with the first three notes all on
the same pitch, thereafter descending until the final note, higher than any of
the previous notes. This song is highly variable, though, with some versions of
it very hard to distinguish from certain song variants of Chestnut-sided Warbler
(Dendroica pensylvanica).
Yellow Warblers are among the earliest of our summer birds to
leave us, starting their migration to their wintering grounds in Central and
South America in the latter part of July, having only arrived in our area at the
end of April or so. Thus it is one of the Neotropical migrants that spends the
least time here on its breeding grounds, and the Yellow Warbler’s inconspicuous
departure is one of the earliest foreshadowings of autumn.
Photo Courtesy of and Copyright © by Rick Paris
rick@rickparis.com
www.rickparis.com
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