Yellow-rumped Warbler « Dancing Aspens Farm Blog

WE had the pleasure of being by Fishercap Lake waiting for moose to come out when this handsome guy starting flying around. I wasn’t sure what he was up to until I took the following pictures of him feeding a spider to… I am not sure if it’s a fledgling or a female or ?? But he was pretty entertaining watching him flutter about and pick spiders out of their webs in the trees…

Cool Facts

The Yellow-rumped Warbler is the only warbler able to digest the waxes found in bayberries and wax myrtles. Its ability to use these fruits allows it to winter farther north than other warblers, sometimes as far north as Newfoundland.

Male Yellow-rumped Warblers tend to forage higher in trees than females do.

Yellow-rumped Warblers are perhaps the most versatile foragers of all warblers. They’re the warbler you’re most likely to see fluttering out from a tree to catch a flying insect, and they’re also quick to switch over to eating berries in fall. Other places Yellow-rumped Warblers have been spotted foraging include picking at insects on washed-up seaweed at the beach, skimming insects from the surface of rivers and the ocean, picking them out of spiderwebs, and grabbing them off piles of manure.

When Yellow-rumped Warblers find themselves foraging with other warbler species, they typically let Palm, Magnolia and Black-throated Green warblers do as they wish, but they assert themselves over Pine and Blackburnian warblers.

The oldest known Yellow-rumped Warbler of the myrtle race was 8 years 9 months old. The oldest known individual of the “Audubon’s” race was 10 years old.

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