Yellow-rumped warbler
Yellow-rumped warblers breed in mountain conifer forests, descending to lower elevations for the winter. The birds at upper left and below are spring males . The male at upper left was foraging in a willow thicket in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California, and the other two males were in lodgepole pine forest at Rock Creek in the eastern Sierra Nevada The bright yellow throat is obvious and is the main feature distinguishing this species (also called 'Audubon's warber') from the white-throated eastern myrtle warbler (formerly thought to be conspecific with the yellow-rump). The bird at upper right is probably a first-winter female, with very subdued coloration (Andrew Molera State Park, near Big Sur, California). Two views of a breeding female are near the bottom of the page; this bird was nesting near Saddlebag Lake in the central Sierra Nevada of California. Near the bottom are two wintering bird from Florida and south Texas.
Images copyright by Mark A. Chappell
