On April 29 in the morning, under a deep blue, very clear sunny sky, a sweet whistled series of notes came from the green leaves of one of the oaks over our deck. The song sounded so pure and lovely I had to look to make sure \u2013 it was a Yellow-rumped Warbler in bright spring plumage, singing more fluently than any I\u2019d heard before this.<\/p>\n
All winter long, Yellow-rumped Warblers are abundant here, as in much of eastern North America, little gray-brown birds in drab, streaked winter plumage punctuated by a yellow patch on the rump and pale yellow smudges on the sides, frequently giving dry, colorless check<\/em> calls as they fly like windblown leaves from spot to spot among trees and shrubs.<\/p>\n Before they leave in the spring \u2013 for breeding territories in northern and western forests \u2013Yellow-rumped Warblers begin to fill the new green foliage of hardwood trees with gently jangling music, like delicate tambourines, and their plain plumage turns to a striking pattern of steel-gray back and wings, white wing-bars, white throat, black mask, and black-streaked vest over a white belly \u2013 and a yellow spot on the crown, and of course, a yellow rump.<\/p>\n For the past few weeks, their songs had filled many trees, and I\u2019d listened to them mostly as a chorus of birds singing together. This was one of the few times I had listened to just one spring-colored Yellow-rumped Warbler singing alone, and watched as it lifted its head, parted its beak and sang \u2013 and flitted from branch to branch of the white oak. It seemed to me like a farewell song, and I took the time, for a change, to fully appreciate a winter bird I too often take for granted.<\/p>\n The next day I left for more than ten days of travel, and when I returned yesterday, the Yellow-rumped Warblers seemed all to be gone.<\/p>\n I used to know Yellow-rumped Warblers as Myrtle Warblers, a much more lyrical and fitting name, before they were grouped together with Audubon\u2019s Warbler into one species with the sadly unimaginative \u2013 though descriptive \u2013 name of yellow-rumped. The two subspecies are still recognized, however, and this one was<\/em> a Myrtle Warbler, distinguished by its white throat (not yellow). Most Yellow-rumped Warblers in the eastern U.S. are Myrtle, while Audubon\u2019s are more common in the west.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On April 29 in the morning, under a deep blue, very clear sunny sky, a sweet whistled series of notes came from the green leaves of one of the oaks over our deck. The song sounded so pure and lovely I had to look to make sure \u2013 it was a Yellow-rumped Warbler in bright […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":917,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions\/917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}