Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas)

County List:

Rule:

Forested or Nonforested Landscapes

      Lowland Brush
      or Marsh 2

Habitat List:

view size class definitions

Literature:

Habitat: The Common Yellowthroat breeds in open or brushy swales, edges of marshes, bogs, and lakes, and river borders grown to sedges. About half the 185 observations in the Atlas Habitat Survey were from shrub wetlands. The second highest category was open wetlands, with 24 observations. Yellowthroats will hold territories in drier sites that have dense grass and shrubs, including burnt-over oak forest where black oats grass and oak sprouts are dense. Upland sites account for a small part of the state's breeding population, however; there were only 15 Habitat Survey observations in shrub uplands.

Nests tend to be just above the ground or shallow water or, in slightly drier sites, practically resting on the ground. Built by the female alone, the nest is bulky for a warbler and usually supported on all sides by sedges or grasses.

Habitat: Breeding: Wet brushy meadows and pastures, open swampy thickets on the margins of damp woods and woodland streams or ponds; in cattail beds of fresh or salt water marshes and dense tangles near water. Occasionally in dry thickets or dense undergrowth in open woodland.

Habitat: Swamps, marshes, wet thickets, edges. Breeds most abundantly in marshes and other very wet habitats with dense low growth. Also nests in briars, moist brushy places, tangles of rank weeds and shrubbery along streams, and over-grown fields, but is generally scarce in drier places. In migration and winter, still most common in marshes, but also occurs in any kind of brushy or wooded area.

Diet: Mostly insects. Feeds mainly on insects, including small grasshoppers, dragonflies, damselflies, mayflies, beetles, grubs, cankerworms, and other caterpillars, moths, flies, ants, aphids, leafhoppers; also eats spiders and a few seeds.

Nest: Prefers to nest low (less than 3 feet up) on tussocks of briers, weeds, grasses, or shrubs, and among cattails, bulrushes, sedges in marshes. Bulky open cup built by female, sometimes with a partial roof of material loosely attached to the rim. Made of weeds, grass, stems, sedges, dead leaves, bark, and ferns; lined with fine grass, bark fibers and hair.