Yellow-rumped Warblers

RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. October 22^nd 2021. I was captivated today by a bunch of Yellow-rumped Warblers who put the icing on the cake of a late season transect.  The transect was a pleasure in its own right with a first-of-fall Fox Sparrow, a long stream of migrating Turkey Vultures and an all too brief, flash-by Cooper’s Hawk.

I had wrapped it up, had dropped my binoculars, camera and notebook in the car and was ready to leave when I noticed birds moving around in the tree nearby. Investigating bird movement is something I do a lot of so, I paused and saw that Yellow-rumped Warblers and American Robins were all over those trees. Two Amur Cork Trees (I think) were loaded with bunches of wrinkling black berries and nearby was a Catalpa, still covered with heart-shaped leaves, it was the warblers’ occasional refuge.

Well it wasn’t much of a mystery, there was lots of food to be had here: The desiccating berries were attracting insects, presumably for the sugars, and robins who gulped them down whole. The warblers, in turn, were there for the insects.  

Yellow–rumped Warblers are eye-catching in spring but much less so in fall; now they are quite subtle and can easily be overlooked or mis-identified. Many times, I’ve peered hard at a small, busy and undistinguished bird high in branches and been relieved to finally catch a glimpse of the bold yellow rump, it is diagnostic. When you get to appreciate them more closely and more slowly, as I did today, then the soft yellow blush somewhere around its armpits, adds another touch of welcome colour.

I got lots of decent photos and include a few of today’s Yellow–rumped Warbler Birds of the Day.