Yellow-rumped Warbler

Affectionately known as “Butterbutts,” Yellow-rumped Warblers do indeed have lemon-yellow backsides, and are common in the summer. Formerly, four subspecies of Butterbutt were considered separate species; the above was an Audubon’s Warbler and the below was a Myrtle Warbler. Why someone decided to change “Myrtle” to “Yellow-rumped,” I will never understand.

 The warbler family is a group of mostly yellow birds that prefer to dine on insects. They enjoy poking around in flowering trees to eat the insects that are attracted to them. Butterbutts are unique in their family because they have the ability to digest waxy fruit; thus, they are able to overwinter much farther north than other warbler species and subside on berries throughout the winter. This means that they avoid the perils of migration, but as a consequence they can be caught by the oddball snow storms that the North throws around in late spring and early fall.

A Butterbutt flashing us a sliver of his yellow rump.

I saw these warblers April 30 at Queen Elizabeth Park, with dozens of their friends. I’m off to the Prairies this summer to monitor birds, so this will be the last blog post for a while. I’m going to be up to my gills in nesting warblers, flycatchers, and vireos in the boreal forest! Thank you all for reading and I hope you have great summer wherever you might be.