Called also: BLACK-MASKED GROUND WARBLER; [COMMON YELLOWTHROAT,
AOU 1998]
Length -- 5.33 inches. Just an inch shorter than the typical
English sparrow.
Male -- Olive-gray on head, shading to olive-green on all the
other upper parts. Forehead, cheeks, and sides of head black,
like a mask, and bordered behind by a grayish line. Throat and
breast bright yellow, growing steadily paler underneath.
Female -- Either totally lacks black mask or its place is
Indicated by only a dusky tint. She is smaller and duller.
Range -- Eastern North America, west to the plains; most common
east of the Alleghanies. Nests from the Gulf States to Labrador
and Manitoba; winters south of Gulf States to Panama.
Migrations -- May. September. Common summer resident.
"Given a piece of marshy ground with an abundance of skunk cabbage and a
fairly dense growth of saplings, and near by a tangle of green brier and
blackberry, and you will be pretty sure to have it tenanted by a pair of
yellowthroats," says Dr. Abbott, who found several of their nests in
skunk-cabbage plants, which he says are favorite cradles. No animal cares to
touch this plant if it can be avoided; but have the birds themselves no sense
of smell?
Before and after the nesting season these active birds, plump of form, elegant
of attire, forceful, but not bold, enter the scrubby pastures near our houses
and the shrubbery of old- fashioned, overgrown gardens, and peer out at the
human wanderer therein with a charming curiosity. The bright eyes of the male
masquerader shine through his black mask, where he intently watches you from
the tangle of syringa and snowball bushes; and as he flies into the laburnum
with its golden chain of blossoms that pale before the yellow of his throat
and breast, you are so impressed with his grace and elegance that you follow
too audaciously, he thinks, and off he goes. And yet this is a bird that seems
to delight in being pursued. It never goes so far away that you are not
tempted to follow it, though it be through dense undergrowth and swampy
thickets, and it always gives you just glimpse enough of its beauties and
graces before it flies ahead, to invite the hope of a closer inspection next
time. When it dives into the deepest part of the tangle, where you can imagine
it hunting about among the roots and fallen leaves for the larvae,
caterpillars, spiders, and other insects on which it feeds, it sometimes
amuses itself with a simple little song between the hunts. But the bird's
indifference, you feel sure, arises from preoccupation rather than rudeness.
If, however, your visit to the undergrowth is unfortunately timed and there
happens to be a bulky nest in process of construction on the ground, a quickly
repeated, vigorous chit, pit, quit, impatiently inquires the reason for your
bold intrusion. Withdraw discreetly and listen to the love-song that is
presently poured out to reassure his plain little maskless mate. The music is
delivered with all the force and energy of his vigorous nature and penetrates
to a surprising distance. "Follow me, follow me, follow me," many people hear
him say; others write the syllables, "Wichity, wichity, wichity, wichity"; and
still others write them, "I beseech you, I beseech you, I beseech you," though
the tones of this self-assertive bird rather command than entreat. Mr. Frank
Chapman says of the yellowthroats: "They sing throughout the summer, and in
August add a flight-song to their repertoire. This is usually uttered toward
evening, when the bird springs several feet into the air, hovers for a second,
and then drops back to the bushes."