What to watch for in May: Songbirds Sporting Yellow
Nature is not shy when it comes to painting some birds yellow. Take the Yellow Warbler. The adult birds are satisfyingly yellow. The males have red streaks on the underparts, which are fainter on the females. These plump warblers have a lovely song, “sweet, sweet, sweet, I’m so sweet.” They have a large breeding range across the continental U.S. and Canada. Their preferred summering habitats are wet woods, thickets and next to streams, so look for them in similar surroundings during migration.
The Wilson’s Warbler is another yellow songbird, and the male has a jaunty black cap that looks like a beret. The female’s cap is much more subtle. It’s named for an early naturalist, Alexander Wilson, who is considered the father of American ornithology. One of the smallest warblers, it nests in dense woodlands, thickets and boggy areas in Canada all the way to Alaska. To learn more about migration routes and breeding areas of various subspecies of Wilson’s Warblers, scientists are studying DNA from their feathers.
If you were a bird, and were migrating to Canada, you might delay until you were sure the weather up there is tolerable before making the trip. That’s the case for the Canada Warbler, an aptly named long distance migrant (3,000 miles one way). It is one of the last to arrive on its primarily Canadian breeding grounds. The striking male bird wears a black necklace set off by its yellow breast, and it has a slate gray back. The female’s necklace is fainter. Both sexes have yellow eye rings. In Austin watch for movement low in dense vegetation or understory where they may give a loud chip note as they flick their wings and tails. Canada Warblers will flock with other birds such as American Redstarts and Wilson’s Warblers.
There are many other warblers passing through Austin that wear yellow well. The Blue-winged Warbler, a bird of the northeast, has a yellow head, breast and belly. The wings appear grayish-blue. The Prothonotary Warbler, associated with swampy lowland sites, is brilliant yellow on its head and breast. A few of them breed along the Colorado River by Webberville. The male Common Yellowthroat has a bright yellow breast and belly and a black mask. It is one of the easiest warblers to find in a variety of habitats during migration.
Western Kingbirds are large flycatchers and one of the easiest summer breeders adorned with yellow that you can see around Austin in summer. They are almost twice the size of warblers and often perch out in the open. They are partial to big box store parking lots with live oak trees they like to nest in. Western Kingbirds are very vocal with sputtering notes that some people say sounds like an old tape recording run backwards. Look for birds with upright posture, pale gray heads, whitish throats and breasts, greenish dark backs, brownish wings, white in the outer tail feathers and pale lemon yellow bellies. Western Kingbirds are well-named as they have a big breeding range across the western U.S.
Where can you find these and other migrants during May? Parks and greenbelts around town, especially those that have a natural water source, appeal to migrants. Songbirds usually migrate at night, and drop down as dawn comes. They are looking for food — insects and spiders fill that bill for many of them. Water is critical for feather care, and creek and pond edges that allow birds to approach unseen to access the water are very popular with birds. Shelter in the form of shrubs, vine tangles, native grasses and low branches give them a sense of security as they preen after bathing.
There are many places to around Austin to go for a walk during May migration to see if you can spot brightly colored birds. Try this tool from eBird, run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, to see what parks close to you are designated birding hotspots. Looking at their bird lists will help you begin to learn the birds of the area.
It’s amazing how millions of birds fly from their winter homes in Central and South America each year to breed in the U.S. and Canada. If you want to know exactly how many birds might be in the air, night by night during migration, check BirdCast, a collaborative effort to understand and predict bird movements based on weather radar surveillance. You can even check to see whether birds will be migrating over Austin in low, medium or high densities with the local migration alert feature. There’s a new feature called the Migration Dashboard that gives estimates of the number of birds in the air on any given night, for your state or county.
