Common Yellowthroat

For Throwback Thursday here's a Common Yellowthroat I met about 5 1/2 years ago. Despite the "common" part of the name, I don't actually encounter these birds a whole lot; this picture was taken back when I was working at Alcatel-Lucent and going on my after-lunch walk.

I suspect this is an immature female; you can contrast her with an adult male here. I don't think there's enough yellow for this to be an adult female, and I see no hint of the black mask that should be starting to form if this was an immature male. 

Yellowthroats are a type of a much larger group of birds, the warblers. Though the males are pretty distinctive looking, the females are harder to recognize.

September 18, 2017 at Murray Hill
Photo 10808625, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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