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Common Yellowthroat | Geothlypis trichas
Gewone maskerzanger | Mascarita común
The Common Yellowthroat is a small warbler of marshes and rank, wet vegetation. The male wears a black mask with a pale border above it; both sexes have a yellow throat. In the guide area resident birds live in parts of Mexico, and in winter birds from North America spread across almost all of Mexico and Central America.
Voice
The song is a loud, repeated rolling phrase, roughly witchety-witchety-witchety, which varies by region. The call is a dry, rather rasping tchep, often repeated from dense vegetation.
Recording: Jeff Stewart — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
11–13 cm. Upperparts olive-brown, throat and breast yellow, belly dull white to buff, undertail coverts yellow. The male has a broad black mask across forehead, lores and cheek, bordered above by a whitish to grey band; in the resident birds of Mexico this band is often yellower and the underparts more extensively yellow. The female lacks the mask, has a brownish-olive head, a faint pale eye-ring and a yellow throat that contrasts sharply with the dull belly. Young males in autumn show a faint, incomplete mask. Tail fairly long and often slightly cocked.
Confusion species
Five other yellowthroats live in the guide area, separated mainly by range and head pattern. Black-polled Yellowthroat Geothlypis speciosa (marshes of the central Mexican highlands) has a mask that extends over the whole crown. Hooded Yellowthroat Geothlypis nelsoni (dry montane scrub in Mexico) has a grey border above the mask and does not live in marshes. Altamira Yellowthroat Geothlypis flavovelata (north-eastern Mexico) and Olive-crowned Yellowthroat Geothlypis semiflava (Caribbean slope from Honduras to Panama) have a yellow or olive-yellow crown above the mask and are entirely yellow below. Grey-crowned Yellowthroat Geothlypis poliocephala has a grey head, a thick bicoloured bill and only a small black spot in front of the eye. Females resemble Kentucky Warbler Geothlypis formosa and Mourning Warbler Geothlypis philadelphia, but those are entirely yellow below.
Habitat
Reed and cattail marshes, wet grassland, waterside vegetation, saltmarsh; in winter also rank field edges, rice fields, scrub and young secondary forest, from sea level into the highlands. It forages low in the vegetation for insects and spiders.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
Breeds across almost all of North America south of the tundra. In the guide area resident in marshes of Baja California, northern and western Mexico and parts of the central highlands. Winter visitors from the north occur throughout Mexico and pass through Central America to Costa Rica and Panama, where the species is scarce. Outside the guide area it also winters in the southern United States and the Caribbean.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best found by listening for the dry call along the edge of a marsh or wet grassland; a bird that comes in close often perches briefly low in the reeds before disappearing again.
Conservation status
Not threatened (LC). Widespread and numerous in North America. Resident populations in Mexico are locally vulnerable to the draining and pollution of marshes.
Scientific name
Geothlypis trichas | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Turdus Trichas; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Geothlypis was introduced in 1847 by Cabanis. Geothlypis is Greek, from gē 'ground' and thlupis, an unidentified small bird: 'ground warbler', after its life low in dense cover. trichas is Greek, trikhas, the name of a thrush-like bird in Aristotle, transferred to this species by Linnaeus. The specimen the first description was based on came from Maryland (USA).