This female Common Yellowthroat Warbler suddenly appeared before me while I was tramping through marsh alders Monday morning.
She looked me over sternly and quickly flew away in apparent disapproval. (I don’t look my best when tramping.) It was a three-second encounter in which I got off two shots, the second of which is an image of a blurred bird butt.
Meeting her, however, does remind me that two of the annoying things about identifying birds is the confusing way that they often are named and the perplexing differences between many males and females. Common Yellowthroat Warblers such as this one are not to be confused with their much different looking (but similarly named) cousins, the Yellow-Throated Warblers.
In fact, this female Common Yellowthroat is not to be confused with her own mate of the same name. He wears a black mask all the time, which she apparently loves. (Female Yellowthroats reportedly choose a mate based on the size of their suitors’ black masks, which are thought to be health indicators. See the Leighton Archive image of a male below.)
(Primary image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on August 7, 2023.)