Not So Black-throated Green Warbler

Black-throated Green Warbler, imm. female

Black-throated Green Warbler, imm. female

Black-throated Green Warbler, imm. female, note yellow wash on vent.

Black-throated Green Warbler, adult male, spring

Continuing on the warbler theme... while birding our property this morning, we saw more warblers. It was great fun to capture these photos and show you what we saw. There was a Black-throated Green Warbler without a black throat, see top 3 photos. That's because she was an immature female Black-throated Green. As we said yesterday, many spring adult warblers change their plumage in fall to more muted colors and patterns. In addition, immature warblers in fall are often paler than adults, especially immature female warblers who can be the most challenging for a birder to identify.

This Black-throated Green warbler has a similar face pattern to the adult, with a yellowish face surrounding an olive cheek patch. She also has that yellowish wash on her lower flanks coming down across her vent area. This clue is consistent for all ages and sexes of Black-throated Green Warbler and a great clue to help you identify immature female Black-throated Greens. Her throat shows no black, only faint slaty smudges at the edges of her lower throat. She was rather tame and let me approach to photograph. Maybe she wanted to be on the blog.

This morning we also saw a Nashville Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow-rumped Warbler and Pine Warbler. If you go birding, or even if you're in your backyard with your binos, be alert to little chips and fast movement in shrubs and trees, especially in the early am, there may be warblers there. To help you identify warblers in fall, see our
Stokes Field Guide To Warblers which has an easy color key to identification and covers all North American Warblers.