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)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Muskrat

Image
I almost forgot that I've got Muskrat pictures; here's one that I met a little over a month ago. I saw these guys splashing around in the canal by the Raritan River Greenway, but photography opportunities were limited since they were moving a lot, including swimming underwater. Then this little fella climbed out of the canal and began eating a few feet away from me. Another one came out and did likewise, albeit a little further away. I was suspicious they might be young Muskrats who didn't know they should stay away from the humans. Though associated with (and sometimes mistaken for) the North American Beaver , and despite "rat" being in their name, they're not particularly closely related to either beavers or rats. Their closest relatives are lemmings and voles. (All these species are rodents though.) May 10, 2021 at the Raritan River Greenway Photo 128959337, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
Read more

Tree and Shrub Planting

Image
I talked about some of the conditions at a Chambers Brook tree planting ; today I thought I'd discuss the tactics. First there are the issues common to both trees and shrubs: Most of the time an auger had dug the holes so there was no question about where to plant the tree/shrub, and things like rocks and roots are essentially irrelevant. While I recognize that the pre-dug holes are a time-and-labor saver, there are a couple downsides. First, the auger was digging holes deeper and wider than needed for our trees/shrubs, necessitating some refilling of the hole before planting. Second, sometimes the soil was a clay that, after a day or two, would harden into something difficult to break up when refilling the hole. When we had to dig our own holes, sometimes you could easily dig a hole but in other situations rocks and/or roots made life quite a bit harder. And while I wore hard-soled boots/shoes that let me hop on the shovel, some others had softer shoes that could have made diggin...
Read more

Peck's Skipper

Image
A Peck's Skipper was checking out a daisy last summer. I think this skipper was named after an entomologist, George William Peck, who died in May of 1909 based on this: We regret to record the death of another of our veteran entomologists, in the person of Mr. George W. Peck, of Roselle Park, N. J. He died on the 18th of May, at the age of seventy-two; he was born in Boston and was a descendant of one of the Mayflower Pilgrims. After being engaged in business in Boston for some years, he removed to New York and became the part owner and head of a wholesale business in glass and tin supplies.  His heart, however, was engrossed with nature studies, and he acquired no little reputation in his own neighbourhood as an entomologist and horticulturist. His collection of Lepidoptera is one of the best in New Jersey.  He never made any contributions to entomological publications, but, being an enthusiastic collector, he was well known to a great many. Despite the kind words from a fel...
Read more