![]() The nest is a cup of twigs, pine needles, grasses, and rootlets. Nest Descriptionįemales build the nest, sometimes using material the male carries to her. Occasionally nest are built in a deciduous tree such as a maple, oak, or birch. They may build their nests far out on a main branch or tuck it close to the trunk in a secure fork of two or more branches. ![]() Tree species include hemlock, spruce, white cedar, pine, Douglas-fir, and larch or tamarack. Yellow-rumped Warblers put their nests on the horizontal branch of a conifer, anywhere from 4 to about 50 feet high. On their wintering grounds in Mexico they've been seen sipping the sweet honeydew liquid excreted by aphids. They eat wild seeds such as from beach grasses and goldenrod, and they may come to feeders, where they'll take sunflower seeds, raisins, peanut butter, and suet. Other commonly eaten fruits include juniper berries, poison ivy, poison oak, greenbrier, grapes, Virginia creeper, and dogwood. The habit is one reason why Yellow-rumped Warblers winter so much farther north than other warbler species. On migration and in winter they eat great numbers of fruits, particularly bayberry and wax myrtle, which their digestive systems are uniquely suited among warblers to digest. ![]() They also eat spruce budworm, a serious forest pest, during outbreaks. Yellow-rumped Warblers eat mainly insects in the summer, including caterpillars and other larvae, leaf beetles, bark beetles, weevils, ants, scale insects, aphids, grasshoppers, caddisflies, craneflies, and gnats, as well as spiders. On their tropical wintering grounds they live in mangroves, thorn scrub, pine-oak-fir forests, and shade coffee plantations. During winter, Yellow-rumped Warblers find open areas with fruiting shrubs or scattered trees, such as parks, streamside woodlands, open pine and pine-oak forest, dunes (where bayberries are common), and residential areas. In the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast, they occur all the way down to sea level wherever conifers are present. and in the central Appalachian mountains, they are found mostly in mountainous areas. While Yellow-rumped Warbler reaches its highest densities in mature, unlogged coniferous forest habitat, it can do well in selectively logged forests where some mature trees are left standing.Yellow-rumped Warblers spend the breeding season in mature coniferous and mixed coniferous-deciduous woodlands (such as in patches of aspen, birch, or willow). One of the last warblers to migrate in fall and one of the first to return in spring, remaining in northernmost breeding areas into October, and returning by late April. Western populations may winter near breeding grounds, primarily near Pacific Coast. Although it is confined largely to mature coniferous breeding habitat, individuals forage in a broad range of microhabitats and employ a variety of foraging techniques, from fly-catching to foliage-gleaning for insects. Among warblers, this species is also one of the most ecologically generalized. The Yellow-rumped Warbler is one of the most common warblers in boreal forest. The birds constantly chirp a "contact call" that keeps the flock together. During winter they disperse in loose flocks, and usually two or three birds at most are observed at a time. They most often sing from the high canopy of trees. Yellow-rumped Warblers are vivid and conspicuous birds that search for food both high and low in Douglas firs or pines. In the East, the "Myrtle Warbler" is an abundant migrant, and the only warbler that regularly spends the winter in the northern states. Until recently, the eastern and western populations of the Yellow-rumped Warbler were thought to be two distinct species, respectively the "Myrtle Warbler" and "Audubon's Warbler." However, it has been found that in the narrow zone where the ranges of the two come together, the birds hybridize freely.
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