Yellow-breasted Chat

Overview

Yellow-breasted Chat: The largest North American warbler. Has olive-green to olive-gray upperparts, brilliant yellow throat, breast. Belly and undertail are white. Eyes have white spectacles and dark eye patches. Bill is heavy and dark. Wings and tail are olive-green. Bill, legs, and feet are black.

Range and Habitat

Yellow-breasted Chat: Breeds from British Columbia, Ontario, and (rarely) Massachusetts south to California, the Gulf Coast, and Florida. Spends winters in the tropics. Preferred habitats include dense thickets and brush, often with thorns, streamside tangles, and dry brushy hillsides.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Yellow-breasted Chat was first described in 1758 by Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist.
Its large size and stout bill, long tail, and distinctive display flight, hovering with slow, deep-flapping wings and dangling feet, make it seem more like one of the mockingbirds or thrashers.
Unlike most warblers, this species has been known to mimic the calls of other birds.
A group of warblers has many collective nouns, including a "bouquet", "confusion", "fall", and "wrench" of warblers.

The Yellow-breasted Chat has a very large range reaching up to around 6.1 million square kilometers. This bird can be found in much of Central America, the Caribbean and throughout North America as well. It also has vagrant populations in the Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic, Greenland and Saint Pierre and Miquelon. This specieas appears in forested areas as well as shrublands and former or degraded forest environments. The global population of this bird is estimated to be around 12 million individuals. Currently, it is not believed that the population trends for this bird will soon approach the minimum levels that could suggest a potential decline in population. Due to this, population trends for the Yellow-breasted Chat have a present evaluation level of Least Concern.