It’s been several years now since one of my favorite summer birds has come by for the season to brighten me. I would swear they are ventriloquists. Sounding like one was here but really there. Or sounding like one was high in the tree top but no one was there at all. And their sound. Cluck, cackle, click, gobble, chuckle, whistle. Never repeating a sound. Seeming to invent its own bird-words as time passed. I miss the Yellow-breasted Chats (Icteria virens) that always came to visit every summer.
Seems I would hear them whenever I was out. Surely they were greeting me. But clever in their hiding, I would rarely see them. Just a few times I was able to catch a glimpse and snap my shutter capturing one of them in pixels.
It’s early. There are many weeks until summer arrives. I’ll be listening. I’ll be hoping to get that happy whistle once again.
2 responses to “Yellow-breasted Chat”
Thank you for that simple explanation of blackberry vs rose brambles. I’m turnig my yard into a native garden and thought to transplant a small bramble from a nearby wooded road ( that has an over abundance). Now i know to take the green.
Thought i might have seen the yellow breasted chat the other day but since you say this is a summer bird, might it have been the Tennesee warbler? Yellow breast, black mask around eyes with streak of white going through. Can’t recall beak shape but think it’s back was grayish but maybe more black-donb’t recall now. definitely not a goldfinch. Here for a moment and then gone.
Hi Barbara! I’m so glad that the post about the look-alikes blackberry and non-native rose blooms. How wonderful that you’re working on a native garden. You will have so many wonderful native visitors!
Yellow-breasted Chats arrive at their breeding grounds between late April and late May. So perhaps it WAS a YBD that you saw? Yellow-breasted Chats are much larger (around 7 inches long) compared to the Tennessee Warbler (about 4.5 inches long). Also the “yellow” of the Yellow-breasted Chat is very brilliant but the yellow of the Tennessee is much more dull. Yes, birds can be so quick in their movements. I wish they would sit still for us!
Thank you for reading my posts!
Bren