Yellow-breasted Chat

Strange, long-tailed tanager-like bird with thick bill. Once thought to be a warbler, but now considered unique in its own family. Bright yellow throat and breast, contrasting white spectacles, and dull olive-green upperparts. Known for its skulking habits. Often difficult to see in dense thickets, shrubby areas, and field edges. In breeding season, however, males can sit on conspicuous perches to sing and even perform a flight display. Fairly widespread but typically uncommon across much of the U.S. and Mexico, wintering to Costa Rica. Song is variable series of slow whistles, hoots, and chatters. Feeds mainly on insects; also fruit in winter.

Adult Male (spring/summer)

Large and bulky with a long tail and big head. Yellow breast, white spectacles and white mustachial stripe.

Lores black or blackish; bill blackish to black in Mar-Aug; mouth black in Mar-Aug.

Adult Female (spring/summer)

Similar by plumage.

Lores dark gray; bill brown or blackish brown Mar-Aug; mouth dark gray in Mar-Aug.

Juvenile:

Upperparts duller grayish-brown or brownish-olive, no yellow on the underparts, and dusky spotting on the throat and upper breast.

General:

A bizarre series of hoots, whistles, and clucks, coming from the briar tangles, announces the presence of the Yellow-breasted Chat. The bird is often hard to see, but sometimes it launches into the air to sing its odd song as it flies, with floppy wingbeats and dangling legs, above the thickets. This is our largest warbler, and surely the strangest as well, seeming to suggest a cross between a warbler and a mockingbird.

Behaviour:

Yellow-breasted Chats can be hard to find, thanks to their habit of skulking in dense thickets. You’ll have the most success looking (or listening) for them early in the breeding season, when males perform their extensive repertoire of loud whistles, rattles, catcalls, grunts, and other sounds. He often sings from an exposed perch or while doing an exaggerated display flight that ends with a thumping sound (probably made by his wings).

Habitat:

The Yellow-breasted Chat breeds in areas of dense shrubbery, including abandoned farm fields, clearcuts, powerline corridors, fencerows, forest edges and openings, swamps, and edges of streams and ponds. Its habitat often includes blackberry bushes. In arid regions of the West it is frequently found in shrubby habitats along rivers. During migration the Yellow-breasted Chat usually stays in low, dense vegetation but may sometimes use suburban habitats.

Information:

Long-distance migrant. Some migrate over land while others fly across the Gulf of Mexico, traveling nocturnally in small groups or singly. In the arid West, one migration corridor may be the cottonwood-willow habitat along the San Pedro River in Arizona.

Similar species: ​

Conservation Status:

May have increased historically in the East as clearing of forest created more brushy habitat. Current population probably stable, although it has declined in parts of Southwest and elsewhere. Listed as least concern.

Capture Rates:

A rare visitor to Colony Farm and often undetected due to its skulking behavior, although breeding attempt has possibly been made, captures have been limited to a few individuals in both the Wilson’s Farm North and Wilson’s Farm South old field s in the park.

Molt Summary:

PS/PF: HY incomplete (May-Sep), AHY complete (Jul-Oct); PA absent.

A presupplemental molt may occur prior to the PF.

The PF is eccentric , with all gr covs, the outermost 3-7 pp, the innermost 3-6 ss, and occasionally 1-2 central rects, but no pp covs replaced.