| from the April 17, 2011 Newsletter issued from Hacienda
Chichen Resort beside Chichén Itzá Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO YELLOW WARBLER IN A GUMBO-LIMBO Atop a dry-season leafless Gumbo-Limbo tree the unmistakable silhouette of a slender-beaked, busily foraging wood-warbler caught my eye. It's spring migration time, so it's exactly the time for this. You can see the bird eyeing some Gumbo-Limbo fruit pods below:
This is a male Yellow Warbler, DENDROICA PETECHIA, in full courtship plumage, with those thin, rusty streaks running down the yellow breast making identification easy. Up North I associate Yellow Warblers with willow thickets in swamps and along streams, so this one looks a little out of place in a Gumbo-Limbo. However, that's the way it is with migrants, their overwintering grounds usually being very different from their summer breeding ones. Here in the Yucatán Yellow Warblers are only winter visitors, so the bird in the picture probably is leaving the area and won't be back until August or so. I'm guessing that he'll soon fly over the Gulf of Mexico onto the US Gulf Coast. However, some overwintering Yellow Warblers migrate into summer homes in Mexico's Western Sierra Madre highlands, so it's conceivable he'll go there instead. The species winters south to Peru and Brazil, so this may not be a bird who's overwintered in the Yucatán, but rather one "just passing through" from South or Central America. Why would a Yellow Warbler be foraging in a leafless Gumbo-Limbo tree? The tree, Bursera simaruba, is very resinous and I've seen insects attracted to the resin. I'm betting the bird was going after those insects. from the October 16, 2011 Newsletter issued from Mayan Beach Garden Inn 20 kms
north of Mahahual, Quintana Roo, México
Actually, if you look closely you can see slight remnants of streaking on that bird's chest. That bird was one of a pair of similar-looking ones met working along the edge of a mangrove swamp the other day. This summer I've commonly seen (but couldn't photograph) spectacularly different-looking Mangrove Warblers, which look like typical Yellow Warblers except that the entire heads of adult males look as if they've been dipped in rust-colored paint. Depending on your expert, Mangrove Warblers constitute one of 35 different Yellow Warbler subspecies, or else they form a distinct species. Typical Yellow Warblers are present in our area only during the Northern winter, but Mangrove Warblers are permanent residents here along the coast. So, does the picture show an immature or female typical Yellow Warbler just arrived from up North, or an immature or female Mangrove Warbler? I'm not expert enough to know. Maybe someone out there can say. |
