Yellow Birds: A Beginner Birder Tip

With new neotropic migrants arriving almost every day in April and many of them having yellow plumage, a quick review of these birds may be in order. Learning plumage coloration is important but often you don’t get to see the entire bird. Or you are looking at it from underneath. That’s when the overall gestalt of a bird can come in very handy.

Here are four neotropic bird families that include species with a lot of yellow plumage. If you can sort a mystery yellow bird into one of these families, you are well on your way to identifying the bird.

Yellow Warbler ©Jim Guyton

Warblers have been called the butterflies of the bird world because of their variety of bright colors. Most warblers have some yellow color, but two distinguishing traits set these birds apart from other yellow birds. The first is they are among the most nervous-acting birds, as they actively move through the woods, darting from branch to branch making them hard to observe when the trees are leafed out. The other characteristic is their small, straight, pointed bill, which they use to glean insects from leaves and branches.

White-eye Vireo ©Richard Pockat

Vireos are also small birds but are slightly bigger than most warblers. They will be gray, olive and yellowish in color. They have heavier, slightly curved bills that have a slight hook at the end, which they use for feeding on insects and fruit. Vireos move more sedately than warblers, more deliberately. When a vireo perches, it usually remains still for a short time whereas warblers move incessantly. Overall vireos also have duller plumages. Vireos are also divided into those that have wing bars and those that do not. Most of them also have strong eyebrow lines or ‘spectacles’ made by eye-rings combined with supraloral stripes.

Orchard Oriole Female/Juvenile ©Jim Guyton

Although adult male Baltimore and Orchard Orioles are relatively easy to identify their females and juvenile males pose more of a challenge with their yellow plumage. Orioles are related to blackbirds and have many of the same physical and behavioral traits. They are generally sleek, medium-sized, elongated birds with long, sharp bills. They are also gregarious, noisy and move around a lot.

Summer Tanager ©Jeff Lemons

The last group of yellow birds is the female tanagers. Tanagers are also mid-sized birds but have more compact bodies then orioles. They also behave more like vireos, moving slowly through the canopy, often sitting still for extended periods of time. Tanagers have shorter, heavier and slightly curved bills compared to the orioles.

You can see there are physical and behavior similarities between warblers and orioles and vireos and tanagers. But tanagers and orioles are larger than the warblers and vireos. It is generally the female tanager and/or oriole that pose the challenge, but they are often seen with males which helps confirm the identity. Warbler and vireo females are often just paler versions of their male counterparts. They don’t usually migrate together.

So, this spring as these birds arrive take a good look at them and see if you see the subtle differences in bills and behavior.