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Warblers
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Length: 4 inches
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Small, active, insect-eating bird
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Thin, pointed bill
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Mostly yellow plumage
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Upperparts greenish-yellow
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Greenish-yellow wings and tail with yellow feather edges
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Plain yellow face with yellow eye ring surrounding dark
eye
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Yellowish legs
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Adult male:Plumage golden yellow
Rusty streaks on breast and flanks
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Female and immature:Plain yellow plumage Streaks on
breast absent or barely noticeable. Some birds have
pale gray wash to plumage (southwestern United States)
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In the eastern United States, Yellow Warblers use a variety of moist
habitats including old fields; overgrown pasture; woodland edges;
hedgerows; the borders of swamps, ponds, and bogs; and streamsides.
In the West, most are restricted to riparian habitats, and in the
Southwest these warblers have declined as this habitat type decreases.
Characteristics of good Yellow Warbler habitat include concealing
cover for nesting, tall singing posts, and feeding areas in trees.
Willow, alder, and elderberry are typical plants. Yellow Warblers
use an earlier successional stage than the closely related Chestnut-sided
Warbler (D. pensylvanica), and they are found typically in lowland
habitat, rather than the upland habitat preferred by Chestnut-sided
Warblers. When they hold adjacent territories, Yellow and Chestnut-sided
warblers countersing. Soon after arriving on their nesting grounds,
Yellow Warbler males establish territories by singing their familiar
musical song, Sweet sweet sweet, I'm so very sweet. The female builds
the nest and incubates the eggs. While on the nest, she is fed by
the male. Yellow Warblers, which are often parasitized by Brown-headed
Cowbirds (as many as 40 percent of nests in some studies), have evolved
a strategy to cope with unwanted eggs. When two or more cowbird eggs
are laid in a nest, Yellow Warblers build a "floor" over
the unwanted eggs so they are insulated from incubation and begin
again. If a nest already contains two or more Yellow Warbler eggs,
the parents will usually hatch them together with the additional cowbird
eggs. Multiple-storied Yellow Warbler nests have been recorded: two-story
nests are not uncommon, and nests with as many as six stories have
been found. Evidence shows that Yellow Warblers that nest in swamps
with a substantial Red-winged Blackbird population suffer less from
cowbird parasitism, as the Red-wings exclude the cowbirds from the
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| Bird rescue & bird adoption;
parrot refuge/rescue & placement for unwanted birds. |
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| Check out our list of local
birds broken down by your state and different types of
species. |
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| Migrating birds stay on track
because of chemical reactions in their bodies that are
influenced by the Earth's magnetic field... |
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Part
I
November
19, 2004