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| Yellow-rumped Warbler Setophaga coronata (Feeding on grapes) |
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| Yellow-rumped Warbler Setophaga coronata (Feeding on grapes) |
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| Chipping Sparrow Spizella passerina |
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| Dark-eyed Junco Junco hyemalis |
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| Find the Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia |
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| Ruby-crowned Kinglet Regulus calendula |
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Hairy Woodpecker Picoides villosus |
It was still unseasonably lovely out today – a fine Sunday for a bird stroll through a quiet spot in NDG. It felt birdy for late fall, with 22 species encountered in a 90-minute walk. Loads of Dark-eyed Juncos and Ruby-crowned Kinglets were feeding and moving through the area, with groups of the former seen visibly migrating. In a personal first for this site, an Eastern Bluebird was heard, from a field edged by a small wooded area.
Towards the end of my circuit, I observed several Yellow-rumped Warblers feeding on wild grapes. Apparently this species of warbler (which one would normally think of as insectivorous) are known for eating fruit on migration and in winter. Didn’t get great images of them eating the grapes, as they were far off, but as was referenced in the previous post, it’s always rewarding to encounter new behaviour in a familiar species.
From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:
“Yellow-rumped Warblers eat mainly insects in the summer, including caterpillars and other larvae, leaf beetles, bark beetles, weevils, ants, scale insects, aphids, grasshoppers, caddisflies, craneflies, and gnats, as well as spiders. They also eat spruce budworm, a serious forest pest, during outbreaks. On migration and in winter they eat great numbers of fruits, particularly bayberry and wax myrtle, which their digestive systems are uniquely suited among warblers to digest. The habit is one reason why Yellow-rumped Warblers winter so much farther north than other warbler species. Other commonly eaten fruits include juniper berries, poison ivy, poison oak, greenbrier, grapes, Virginia creeper, and dogwood. They eat wild seeds such as from beach grasses and goldenrod, and they may come to feeders, where they'll take sunflower seeds, raisins, peanut butter, and suet. On their wintering grounds in Mexico they've been seen sipping the sweet honeydew liquid excreted by aphids.”
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