Sweet tweets

The first wood-warbler many people become familiar with is the yellow warbler. Nearly all warblers are small, and many species of warblers — there are more than 20 that come through our area at least part of the year — remain high in the treetops or deep in woods and thus are difficult to find.

 The yellow warbler has several virtues. In addition to being brightly colored, it is a common and widespread breeding bird, comfortable in a wide variety of habitats, often sings out in the open, and has a sweet and easily recognized song.

The adult male yellow warbler is overall lemon yellow with chestnut-colored streaks on its breast. The female is a slightly duller yellow and lacks the streaks. Many other warblers have varying degrees of yellow, but only the yellow warbler is virtually all yellow, including its undertail coverts (the feathers on the underside at the base of the tail).

Yellow warbler habitats include gardens, backyards, shrubby areas, and woodland edges, but almost never inside forests. Usually the nesting habitats are near water.

The sweetly whistled song of the yellow warbler is a gradually accelerating tee-tee-tee-ti-ti-ti-wee, with the first few notes and the final one upslurred. A typical mnemonic for this song is, “Sweet, sweet, sweet, I’m so sweet!â€

The yellow warbler is one of the most frequent cowbird hosts among our breeding songbirds. Brown-headed cowbirds lay their eggs in these warblers’ nests, significantly reducing the chances that the warblers will raise their own young to fledging.

And a trio of vireos. Less visible at this time of year, but among our most persistent singers, are our three breeding species of vireos: the red-eyed, yellow-throated and warbling vireos.  These are slightly bigger than warblers and slower moving, and they tend to stay within dense foliage, making them hard to see.

 The red-eyed vireo is considered our most abundant interior-forest breeding bird. It sings simple, whistled phrases throughout the day: “Who are you? Look at me. Who are you?  Look at me.â€

 The yellow-throated vireo is fairly common, almost invariably found in trees around the borders of streams and lakes. Its song is superficially like the red-eyed’s, but the phrases generally have only two syllables, and have a slower and distinctly husky delivery — often transcribed as:  “Three-eight?  Three-eight.â€

Also very common is the warbling vireo, although it is most sluggish and the drabbest in appearance, and thus the most elusive.  Its song is quite different from the others’: a long, lazy, meandering warble that ends with a sharply upslurred note.

 In many places in our region — by woods bordering the Housatonic River, for example, or at Audubon’s Miles Wildlife Sanctuary in Sharon – it is possible to hear all three kinds of vireos singing simultaneously. See if you can tune in the next time you are outside and pick up the signals from these sweet summer singers.

Fred Baumgarten is a naturalist and writer. He can be reached at fredb58@sbcglobal.net. His blog is at thatbirdblog.blogspot.com.