"A Butterbutt in a Cherry Tree" The Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Affectionately known to bird watchers as "butterbutts," yellow-rumped warblers are abundant migrants that pass through North America each spring and fall in most of Canada and in every state except Hawaii. Summer finds the gray and yellow birds in the evergreen forests of Canada, the mountainous western U.S. and the Northeast. They spend winters farther north than most warblers, in the southern U.S. as well as in Mexico and Central America. The yellow-rumped-warbler is a species that is familiar to just about every birder in North America. It has has four distinct forms, and compelling evidence that three of them are full species. It is not the first time these 5-inch-long, half-once birds have prompted debate among ornithologists. For most of the last century the yellow-rumped warbler was known to bird watchers as two species, the myrtle warbler of the East (and far north) and the Audubon's warbler of the West. However, in 1973, evidence the two species routinely hybridize in a narrow zone in western Canada led scientists to reclassify them as a single species. (news.cornell.edu) I saw this lovely warbler sitting amongst the cherry blossoms in Huntington Beach Library in Huntington Beach, California.
"A Butterbutt in a Cherry Tree" The Yellow-Rumped Warbler
Affectionately known to bird watchers as "butterbutts," yellow-rumped warblers are abundant migrants that pass through North America each spring and fall in most of Canada and in every state except Hawaii. Summer finds the gray and yellow birds in the evergreen forests of Canada, the mountainous western U.S. and the Northeast. They spend winters farther north than most warblers, in the southern U.S. as well as in Mexico and Central America. The yellow-rumped-warbler is a species that is familiar to just about every birder in North America. It has has four distinct forms, and compelling evidence that three of them are full species. It is not the first time these 5-inch-long, half-once birds have prompted debate among ornithologists. For most of the last century the yellow-rumped warbler was known to bird watchers as two species, the myrtle warbler of the East (and far north) and the Audubon's warbler of the West. However, in 1973, evidence the two species routinely hybridize in a narrow zone in western Canada led scientists to reclassify them as a single species. (news.cornell.edu) I saw this lovely warbler sitting amongst the cherry blossoms in Huntington Beach Library in Huntington Beach, California.