A Winter Warbler

I took this photo of a Yellow-rumped Warbler at our suet feeder this morning.  You can still see some suet on the top at the base of its bill.  It got me to thinking about how it’s kind of strange that I only remember seeing them in our back yard during the winter.  I normally think of warblers as tropical birds that only migrate here during the spring to mate and raise their young and then migrate south in the fall. I decided to do some research. Checking eBird observation charts for Polk County I found that Yellow-rumped Warblers have not been reported in Polk County from the middle of June through the middle of August.  Checking my own personal records for my back yard I found an even longer absence, with their presence only noted from November through March.  Of the nine warblers commonly seen here in the mid Willamette Valley, only two, the Townsends and Yellow-rumped are seen during the winter. In other words, the majority of warbles, seven out of nine, are only summer residents migrating south in the winter. I am now going to have a new appreciation for the Yellow-rumped Warbler and be thinking of it as unique in its role as a winter warbler.