Yellow-breasted Chat

The Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteria virens) is a fairly large songbird that lives in North America and is the only member of the family Icteriidae. It was once a member of the New World Warbler family, but in 2017, the American Ornithological Society moved it to its own family. Interestingly enough, its placement is still not definitely resolved.

About Yellow-breasted Chats

There are a plethora of things that are interesting about this bird. Even something as simple as its taxonomy has a vast and confusing history. The Yellow-breasted Chat was formerly the largest member of the family Parulidae, but following taxonomic studies, it was moved to the monotypic family Icteriidae. Although Icteriidae is a distinct family from the New World Blackbirds (Icteridae), which have a very similar name, taxonomic studies support them as being the closest living relatives of one another, and in a 2019 study, Carl Oliveros and colleagues actually classified the Yellow-breasted Chat as a member of Icteridae. In addition, the former grouping of the Yellow-breasted Chat as a Warbler was not too far off, as Parulidae is now considered the sister group to the clade containing Icteridae and Icteriidae.

There are some very significant features that set these birds apart from the rest. Namely, their large, white eye-rings, and blackish legs. When seen, this species is unlikely to be mistaken for any other bird.

Now that you have a basic idea of the history of these intriguing birds, why not learn a little more about them? Sure, they’re hard to miss and can’t be mistaken for other birds, but it’s always best to know what to look out for while bird watching for these magnificent creatures! This is why we have compiled a bunch of much-needed information on this bird to help make it easier to identify in its natural habitat. Today you will learn:

● Yellow-breasted Chat Photos, Color Pattern, Song
● Yellow-breasted Chat Size, Eating behavior, Habitat
● Yellow-breasted Chat Range and Migration, Nesting

GET KIDS BIRD WATCHING

Yellow-breasted Chat Color Pattern

Yellow-breasted Chats have a very distinct color pattern to them, making them easy to spot in the wild. They are olive-green above with a bright yellow breast and boldface markings. Their faces are gray, with white eyerings that connect to the bill, forming spectacles. They also have white malars bordering their cheeks. Their lower bellies are white. Eastern Yellow-breasted Chats tend to have shorter mustache stripes. These key colors and patterns make this bird highly identifiable, and also make it hard to confuse them with other birds.

Description and Identification

Yellow-breasted Chats offer a cascade of songs in the spring, when males deliver streams of whistles, cackles, chuckles, and gurgles with the fluidity of improvisational jazz. They are seldom seen or heard during the rest of the year, when both males and females skulk silently in the shadows of dense thickets, gleaning insects and berries for food. The largest of our Warblers (still in dispute, since their classification is quite vast and confusing), these Chats are widespread breeders in shrubby habitats across North America, venturing to Central America for the winter.

These birds are strange, long-tailed Tanager-like birds with thick bills. They were once thought to be Warblers, but now are considered unique and classified under their own family. Yellow-breasted Chats have bright yellow throats and breasts, contrasting white spectacles, and dull olive-green upper parts. They have skulking habits and are often difficult to see in dense thickets, shrubby areas, and field edges. During the breeding season, however, males can sit on conspicuous perches to sing and even perform a flight display. Yellow-breasted Chats are fairly widespread but typically uncommon across much of the U.S. and Mexico, wintering to Costa Rica. Their song is a variable series of slow whistles, hoots, and chatters. They feed mainly on insects, but may also feed on fruit in winter.

Yellow-breasted Chat Song

Yellow-breasted Chats are fairly large songbirds, and so, they have a plethora of songs and sounds they make. They are very avid singers. Males have a large repertoire of songs made up of whistles, cackles, mews, catcalls, caw notes, chuckles, rattles, squawks, gurgles, and pops. They repeat and string these sounds together with great variety. Songs of Western birds may be higher in pitch and more rapid than those of eastern birds. They sing in the morning and in the evening (and even at night during the height of the breeding season), either concealed in thickets or exposed on prominent perches within their breeding territories.

Yellow-Breasted Chats also have a variety of calls, including a distinctive harsh scolding. Females also make a gargling growl when disturbed at the nest. Wintering males and females give a “chuck” call to defend winter territories.

Apart from their song and general calls, they also have other sounds that set them apart from other birds. Males produce a hollow, thumping sound during display flights, probably made with their wings. Females may also make this sound while flying and may clap their bills with a soft, snapping sound when at the nest.

Yellow-breasted Chat Size

Chats are fairly large songbirds (still considered small in comparison to other songbirds) but are large and bulky compared to “other” warblers. They have long tails, large heads, and relatively thick, heavy bills. They tend to be larger than Yellow Warblers, but smaller than American Robins. Since these birds do not exhibit sexual dimorphism, the males and females average at the same size in adulthood. With a length of 7.1 inches on average, these birds have wings that span 9.8 inches and they tend to weigh around 23-31 grams once full-grown.

Yellow-breasted Chat Behavior

Yellow-breasted Chats are loud birds that tend to skulk in low, thick brush. They are actually known for their skulking. In spring, males may sing from an exposed perch, but otherwise, these birds typically stay well hidden.

During the breeding season, males sometimes fight near territorial boundaries, fluttering and grappling with their feet. They give display flights in the presence of females, other males, or human intruders. This entails descending from a high perch while singing, often with exaggerated wingbeats and a drooping tail. At the end of the flight, they make a thumping sound, presumably with their wings. Most males stay with one mate during the breeding season, but some have two mates. DNA studies show that nestlings are sometimes fathered by males outside of the breeding pair. The female builds the nest and broods the chicks, and both parents feed the young. Though males sing conspicuously during the breeding season, chats otherwise skulk quietly in the underbrush. Their flight is direct and low through dense vegetation or sometimes across open fields. During the winter, Chats are sedentary and solitary, and individuals may defend territories.

These birds forage by searching among foliage among dense low tangles or by perching to eat berries. Unlike any other Warbler, Chats will hold their food with one foot while they feed. They forage alone during migration and winter, rather than joining feeding flocks.

Yellow-breasted Chat Diet

In a nutshell, these birds have diets that consist mainly of insects and berries. They feed on a wide variety of insects, including moths, beetles, bugs, ants, bees, wasps, mayflies, grasshoppers, katydids, caterpillars, praying mantises, and also spiders. Up to half of their diets (or more in fall) may consist of berries and wild fruit, including blackberries, elderberries, wild grapes, and others. Wintering birds in the Northeast often come to bird-feeders, where they will take many unnatural items such as suet or peanut butter.

Yellow-breasted Chats forage mainly on spiders and insects, including beetles, bugs, ants, bees, mayflies, cicadas, moths, and caterpillars. They glean invertebrates from foliage in the dense thickets on their breeding grounds, using their feet to hold prey. Chats may also eat fruits and berries, including strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, elderberries, and wild grapes. They feed their nestlings caterpillars, grasshoppers, and other soft-bodied insects. On wintering grounds, Yellow-breasted Chats rely on a combination of insects, spiders, and fruits for food.

Yellow-breasted Chat Habitat

Yellow-breasted Chats live in thickets and other dense, regrowing areas such as bramble bushes, clearcuts, powerline corridors, and shrubs along streams.

They breed in areas of dense shrubbery, including abandoned farm fields, clear-cuts, powerline corridors, fencerows, forest edges and openings, swamps, and edges of streams and ponds. Their habitat often includes blackberry bushes. In arid regions of the West, they are frequently found in shrubby habitats along rivers. During migration Yellow-breasted Chats usually stay in low, dense vegetation but may sometimes use suburban habitats. Most of the population winters from Mexico (in lowlands along both coasts) to western Panama, in low vegetation similar to that in
which they breed. This wintering habitat includes shrubsteppe, savanna, pasture with scattered trees, riparian forest, mangroves, disturbed tropical forests, and tropical scrub.

Range and Migration

Yellow-breasted Chats are long-distance migrants. Some individuals migrate overland while others fly across the Gulf of Mexico, traveling nocturnally (like most Warblers) in small groups or singly. In the arid West, one migration corridor may be the cottonwood-willow habitat along the San Pedro River in Arizona.

Yellow-breasted Chat Lifecycle

Yellow-breasted Chats lay 3-4 eggs, and sometimes up to 6 eggs. Their eggs are large and creamy white, with brown spots at the large end. This species normally has 2 broods per year. Incubation is normally done by females of the species only, and the incubation period lasts up to 11 days. Their nests are commonly parasitized by Brown-headed Cowbirds, making it competitive for both parents and younglings. Once they hatch, the younglings are fed by both parents, and once they have been fed sufficiently and taken care of, they leave the nest about 8 days after hatching. Once they leave their nests, Yellow-breasted Chats live on to see a long life of around 5-8 years. The oldest Yellow-breasted Chat on record was a female and was at least an impressive 11 years old when recaptured and released at an Arizona banding station in 2015.

Nesting

During courtship, males display to females by pointing their bills up and swaying from side to side. They have flight song displays, where males fly up singing, hover, drop slowly with their wings flapping over their backs and legs dangling loosely, then return to perch. They occasionally nest in loose colonies.

Yellow-breasted Chats nest in low, dense vegetation such as raspberry, blackberry, grapevine, dogwood, hawthorn, cedar, multiflora rose, honeysuckle, and sumac. They build their nests 1–8 feet above the ground, supported by branches and often by masses of vegetation. They may use nest sites previously used by different individuals, although they rebuild the nest each time. The females build bulky cups of grasses, leaves, bark strips, and weed stems lined with fine grasses, wiry plant stems, pine needles, and sometimes roots and hair. The nests measure 5–6 inches across on the outside. The inner cups measure 2.5–3.5 inches across and 2–2.5 inches high.

Anatomy of a Yellow-breasted Chat

Yellow-breasted Chats are larger than other Warblers, reaching a length of 7.5 inches and a wingspan of 9.75 inches. These birds have olive upperparts with white bellies and yellow throats and breasts. They also have long tails, thick heavy bills, large white eye-rings, and dark legs.

Adults are large and bulky with long tails and big heads. One of the key identifying features in their anatomy is the fact that they have whimsical white mustaches, making for an incredulous sight. These birds are small (still larger than most) but bulky with big chests, long tails, and heavy bills. Their chests are probably big because of how avid they are when it comes to singing, they need all the lung space they can get!

Final Thoughts

The Yellow-breasted Chat is a shy, skulking species of bird. You can often hear them but not see them. A bizarre series of hoots, whistles, and clucks, coming from the briar tangles, announces the presence of the Yellow-breasted Chat. The bird is often hard to see, but sometimes it launches into the air to sing its odd song as it flies, with floppy wingbeats and dangling legs, above the thickets. This is our largest warbler, and surely the strangest as well, seeming to suggest a cross between a Warbler and a Mockingbird.

This bird is extremely complex in its taxonomy, making it a rare and interesting sight to see. Yellow-breasted Chats are extremely adorable, fairly large (but still considered small) songbirds that are famous for their songs and their distinct yellow breasts and throats. They also have white mustaches and “spectacles”, making for a very dignified sight to see.

Luckily, these birds are listed as “Least Concern” in the IUCN, so it makes it easier to spot them in the wild since they seem to have a thriving population! What’s even better is, these birds are often seen eating from bird feeders in backyards, so you may not even have to leave your backyard to see these birds (if you live near their habitat, of course)! These adorable birds are known to be versatile in their diet since they are even seen eating things like peanut butter from bird feeders! How bizarre is that? Yellow-breasted Chats are an amazing sight to see, and hopefully will be a sight for bird-watchers for generations to come!

Ornithology

Bird Watching Academy & Camp Subscription Boxes

At the Bird Watching Academy & Camp we help kids, youth, and adults get excited and involved in bird watching. We have several monthly subscription boxes that you can subscribe to. Our monthly subscription boxes help kids, youth, and adults learn about birds, bird watching, and bird conservation.

Bird Watching Binoculars for IdentifyingYellow-breasted Chats

The most common types of bird watching binoculars for viewing Yellow-breasted Chats are 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. Bird Watching Academy & Camp sells really nice 8×21 binoculars and 10×42 binoculars. You can view and purchase them here.

Yellow-breasted Chat Stickers

Stickers are a great way for you to display your love for bird watching and the Yellow-breasted Chat. We sell a monthly subscription sticker pack. The sticker packs have 12 bird stickers. These sticker packs will help your kids learn new birds every month.

Bird Feeders ForYellow-breasted Chats

There are many types of bird feeders. Bird feeders are a great addition to your backyard. Bird feeders will increase the chances of attracting birds drastically. Both kids and adults will have a great time watching birds eat at these bird feeders. There are a wide variety of bird feeders on the market and it is important to find the best fit for you and your backyard.

Bird HousesForYellow-breasted Chats

There are many types of bird houses. Building a bird house is always fun but can be frustrating. Getting a bird house for kids to watch birds grow is always fun. If you spend a little extra money on bird houses, it will be well worth every penny and they’ll look great.