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Species Profile:
Common Yellowthroat
Witchity, witchity, witchity, witch! The
distinctive call of the Common Yellowthroat
(Geothlypis trichas) makes it one of
the
first warblers that beginning birders
can
identify by song alone. But few can
lay claim
to such a dramatic encounter with this
bird
and its song as Michael Mesure, President
of the Fatal Light Awareness Program.
Early on in his bird rescue career Michael
caught a disoriented but seemingly
healthy
male Common Yellowthroat in downtown
Toronto
and did the usual thing of popping
him into
a brown paper bag. As Mike drove to
the release
site, the yellowthroat nudged his way
out
of the bag and proceeded to fly around
the
car. Before Mike could pull the car
over,
the bird had landed on the rear view
mirror.
Michael stopped the car and watched,
mesmerized,
as the yellowthroat began to sing,
singing
for all he was worth, then dropped
into Mike's
lap, dead.
This incredible experience cemented his dedication
to the plight of migratory birds. It's
no
accident, either, that Michael chose
the
Common Yellowthroat as the avian representative
for the FLAP logo.
The stunning black mask of the male makes
the Common Yellowthroat the Lone Ranger
of
the bird world! The female lacks the
mask
but is otherwise similar in appearance
to
her mate with a bright yellow throat,
whitish
belly and olive-brown back, wings and
tail.
The wren-like jerky movements with
tail cocked
upwards earned the bird the early moniker
of "Olive-coloured Yellow-throated
Wren".
In 1907 ornithologist Frank Chapman
wrote:
"With nervous animation the bird
hops
here and there, appearing and disappearing,
its bright eyes shining through its
black
mask, its personality so distinct,
that one
is tempted to believe it is a feather-clad
sprite of the bushes."
Like other warblers, the yellowthroat eats
insects and lots of them! One individual
was seen to pack away 89 aphids in
one minute!
And feeding is an activity requiring
such
intense concentration that even the
threat
of capture may not divert a Common
Yellowthroat
from its goal. Michael tells the story
of
a male yellowthroat intent on catching
a
moth. He walked up and grabbed the
bird,
but even from his grasp the bird stretched
out his neck, snatched the moth and
swallowed
it!
Other preferred snacks of Common Yellowthroats
include spiders, beetles, flies and
their
larvae. But the birds themselves can
become
food for larger creatures. One hapless
fellow
was found in the stomach of a three-pound
Largemouth Bass!
One of the most abundant of North American
warblers, the Common Yellowthroat prefers
marshy or scrubby wet areas as nesting
sites.
The nest is a cup of grasses and rootlets
lined with finer material, usually
located
on or close to the ground, but above
the
high water mark.
The Song Sparrow, Yellow Warbler and Common
Yellowthroat are the three birds most
commonly
parasitized by the Brown-Headed Cowbird.
The cowbird's chick-raising strategy
is to
let someone else do the work, depositing
her egg in another species' nest. The
host
bird often cannot distinguish this
foreign
egg from her own and will incubate
and feed
the alien nestling, frequently to the
detriment
of her own offspring. The Common Yellowthroat
will sometimes refuse to be the adoptive
parent, however, and actually build
another
nest on top of the intruding cowbird
egg!
Clever though it may be, the Common Yellowthroat
still falls victim to the lights of
tall
structures far too often (it's the
second
most common warbler that FLAPPERs find
on
Toronto's darkened streets). So we
continue
our struggle to make urban environments
safer
for this lovely songbird and many others.
Chris Earley
Chris is the Interpretive Naturalist at the
Arboretum, University of Guelph and
author
of Warblers of Ontario.
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