Greetings everyone! We are finally back home now having completed our intended mission on Exploration Tres. I am still absolutely shocked at the lack of connectivity we faced as we move further and further north. Guessing some of it has to do with our provider as we really only have one option that has sufficient coverage by our home here in the country and they tend to be weaker as we travel out of the state. The rest of the issue is Linda keeps dragging me into deep woods in remote parts of the country – if you don’t hear from me in a while and find out Linda is in Tahiti with the dogs…do me a favor and drop a line to 911 for me hehehehe. The birding was a bit hit or miss on the trip so the backlog queue didn’t grow that much. On the odd front, this is the first time since I can remember I didn’t tin one of these.
The shots in this series failed to give you a view of their primary tell-tale characteristic, so you may not recognize tonight’s featured feathered friend. Imagine that yellow patch on the side of the breast to also be found on the rump – yep, this is the very ubiquitous Yellow-Rumped Warbler. Although the species can be found in the entirety of North America dependent on their seasonal regions, this happens to be my first immature – well, at least that I am willing to show you ha!
Hit the jump to read a bit more on our delicately colored specimen.
There are two subspecies for the Yellow-Rumped, the Myrtle and the Audubon. The adult males are easy to distinguish in the field since the Myrtle lacks the yellow throat that is prominent on the Audubon – the throat is white on the male Myrtles. I was not sure on the females or the immatures and Cornell’s website let me down showing on the Myrtle immature. Luckily I have “The Warbler Guide” reference by Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle (link here). Note, I do not get a kickback from Amazon, just using that as a handy link so you can get more info on it if you wanted). Ron alerted me to this reference several years back when we were struggling to ID some of the Warblers we tinned in the fall migration up at Montrose. A lot of the Warblers go to more muted coloring at that time of the year making the job more difficult. If you want to have access to every angle, every age morph, song breakdowns, regional differences and incredible detail on characteristics about a Warbler… this book is the only one you need. To be completely honest, it can be overwhelming. It usually only comes out when I need to go that extra mile, nautical mile, marathon.. hell, ultra – regardless, this reference will get you there with plenty of pictures to feast your eyes on (warning, it even has the shots of the reference carcasses).
What I especially like is the in depth analysis for inter-species comparisons. Pure bird porn for us feather aficionados. It didn’t take long for me to confirm that this was a Myrtle immature. The female Myrtles will transition to deepen their browns on top, darken their streaks and usually grey out their lores and primary wing feathers. From what I can tell from my other encounters, their yellow patches on their breasts will amp up significantly compared to the specimen here.
As I am unable to show you the rump angle in this series, this would be a good time to point out another feature that can be helpful in the field – trust me, they do not always cooperate with you in the field and unless they are in flight, may not even be able to see the yellow patch if you do manage to get behind them. In this situation, try to observe the undertail coloring. The Yellow-Rumps will have two large almost tear drop looking patches. Now that angle I can show you. There are a few other birds that have similar patterns on the tails, however, if you can marry it up with the yellow hues on the sides of the breast then you are probably good to go. If you are curious about the yellow patch on the rump, I was able to cover that perspective when they were featured back in July of 2012 (link here) – ironically, from one of the places we visited on our latest trip – Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin. If you want to gauge your running condition, give the bluff trails around that lake a shot. I ran up both bluffs (east immediately followed by west) and by the time I made it back to the RV was pretty sure my legs had just been in a turf battle with the Baseball Furies.
If you happen to come upon a Yellow-Rumped in the field (either subspecies), try to get a shot of their yellow crown streak. Like the Kinglets (Ruby here, and Golden here), the Rumps will not always reveal that royal characteristic. Per the huge range of the Rumps mentioned above, their ability to utilize berries or insects for nourishment allows them greater range, especially in the winter months when insects become more scarce. According to Cornell, they are “the only Warbler able to digest the waxes found in bayberries and wax myrtles.”.
Hmm, forgot to give the details on where this specimen was found – let’s correct that now. Our little immature was found while exploring Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen, Texas during Expedition Uno in January of this year. Wonderful place and one I highly recommend visiting there if the chaos is ever addressed along our southern border. They “rumps” managed to push that issue off the front page thanks to stranding thousands of American citizens behind enemy lines.
Hope you enjoyed the latest offering, a small incremental step up in color hues from the other posts this month. Stay tuned, more color coming your way.
Wildlife Intrigued 
Great photography and thanks for the information you gave us.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Rudi! glad you enjoyed and got something out of the post – that’s my goal every time.
LikeLike
Pretty little bird, nicely photographed!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Appreciate it B! This immature definitely helped me out by being calm and fairly steady allowing me to dial in the settings for once. Usually the adult Rumps are hyper-busy hopping from branch to branch looking for food. Thanks for dropping in and if things go right, I just might have a post coming you should enjoy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Connectivity on the road can be troubling for sure. Beautiful Yellow-Rumped Warbler.
LikeLiked by 2 people
First off, sorry again for the recent news cherish the memories. On the connectivity front, I am starting to get annoyed. I hear all this crap that is now considered “infrastructure” by “polifictions” s while we still can’t go from one state to another without hanging our phones out the car window in a desperate attempt to grab a few bars of signal. I can’t wait to see the chaos when some genius engineer decides the electric vehicle needs to call back to the mothership to operate. Time will tell – as always appreciate you pointing your browser my way.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The last time we were in Paris, my phone connected to the Orange network, on an agreement with T-mobile and I had no trouble. Laurie’s phone, identical to mine and on the same carrier never connected. My computer had no problem connecting to all the WiFis, hers was problematic from day one. I almost ended up taking Lauries MacBook to a French Apple Genius bar, which would have been interesting, but I finally got her computer working. No reason all my equipment worked with no problems and none of hers wanted to work at all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very nice Brian! You’ve also identified one of the hard parts about photographing birds . . . seeing them from the top. I’ve been lucky a couple of times, but to be fair, the birds were on a tree a hundred feet below me in the Grand Canyon. Though bird porn and deep woods and limited if any mobile phone coverage in the same article makes me worry for you a bit…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Why thank you Brad! I don’t know how many times I’ve told those new to photography and birds that is better to be farther away from a bird than it is to be right up next to it, but under it. For a majority of birds, the real distinguishing marks are on the sides and back vs the throat, breast and undertails. Those features can provide additional markers (streaks, coloring etc.) That is the nice things about Devil’s Lake in Baraboo, WI. One of the few opportunities to look down from the bluffs and capture Turkey Vultures soaring below me – still and ugly bird, but allows your imagination to run wild about riding them.
Oh, and Just for the record, I tell Linda to ALWAYS worry about me! Thanks for dropping in Brad … Halloween is coming….
LikeLike
At least Linda shouldn’t have to worry about you in your home forest. Key word “shouldn’t”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Trust me, I’ve had my share of mishaps in our forest ha!
LikeLike
Nice. Good to see you made it back to home country. Things have gotten crazy around Ely with forest fires.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It feels good to be home as it takes a lot of stress off trying to train for the big race that is coming. Did pretty good getting some really tough runs and a LOT of crosstraining trying to pedal fast enough to keep up with Linda on the bike. The day we left Ely one of the fires broke out in Ely. Everywhere we went there were notices on banning fires in that area. Even texted my brothers when we left telling them we had NOTHING to do with the fires just in case it showed up on the news back home. Unfortunately, it has turned miserably hot here – lost like 5 pounds on my run this morning and it is even going to be hotter in the coming days. Thanks again for the recommendations on places to visit in MN.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No problem, free travel advice. I have seen the crazy weather patterns across the US this summer and wonder how much more anyone can take… we have had it mild (or normal compared to last three very hot summers) which is good as I can’t do heat. That fire situation is pretty bad in MN. Good thing you got out of there when you did.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love butter-butts! So happy you got to photograph this active little bird – watching them hunt just makes me grin. Good tip on trying to capture their crown, I don’t think I’ve gotten that view yet.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I absolutely love that name and will use that whenever I refer to them for now on – awesome. I n all honestly, I only spotted that crown a few years back which threw me off on the ID the first time I saw it thinking it might be a cross with a Golden Crown Kinglet (that stuck its butt in butter ha). Did some checking and sure enough, there it was in the reference books. Look for it all the time in the field now.. but as you noted, they tend to keep that under wraps most of the time – might just be an aggression or mating trait. Thanks for heading my way Sam and for giving me my new pet name for these active birds.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice thanks for sharing…
LikeLike
Lovely little guy. You have me curious now: I will have to Google him to see his butt! Happy weekend! 🌞
LikeLiked by 1 person
These “Butter-butts” like to draw attention to their heinies ha! They are easily seen in flight, I just didn’t get an opportunity to tin one this time. Thanks for dropping in Lisa, appreciate it.
LikeLiked by 1 person