An occasional visitor to my bird bath, in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. A Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata). Fondly called Butterbutts by birders. If you don’t have a bird bath, I sure recommend one equipped with a water warmer to keep the water from freezing during the coldest that winter can throw at you.
These warblers don’t partake of the beautiful bird buffet that I put out for them but I’ve read that they do enjoy suet, sunflower seeds, peanut butter and raisins at back yard feeders. AND down at my Mom’s feeder in Citrus County, Florida, they enjoy her suet. Maybe I should ask my sister for her recipe. They don’t seem interested in MY recipe.
When they’re not at a feeder during the winter they will feed on the berries of juniper, poison ivy, poison oak, greenbrier, grapes, Virginia creeper, and dogwood. Butterbutts also eat the seeds of grasses and goldenrod.
During the summer while they’re up north they eat spiders, and many insects like beetles, caterpillars, gnats, wasps, aphids, and grasshoppers.
Best of luck at getting to see Yellow-rumped Warblers and don’t forget, if I didn’t have a bird bath equipped with a water warmer I doubt I’d get to see these sweet little birds.
5 responses to “Yellow-rumped Warblers”
Love your posts Brenda, keep’em coming!
I’ve been seeing these guys flitting about and I have been pondering whether or not they were mutant goldfinches with early molted yellow plumage starting in. Then I noted the beaks weren’t finchlike and they stopped coming around. Your butterbutt warbler note will have me prepped for my next sighting. Thanks for a greatly appreciated heads up. ken C
Oh Ken! It’s the very least I can do! Keep watching! Maybe they’ll be back? I saw a couple in May of 2018.
Thanks bunches for reading my ramblings!
Bren
not ramblings, you have the gift of sharing and I’m lucky enough to have stumbled onto the treasure of your thoughts., If I knew how to post things I’d do the same… I enjoy your fine observations. And as you can see by the butter butts, they help me and likely many others.
Thanks one more time Ken! I do indeed love to share the world of nature with others. And sometimes I venture from that stage to other thoughts – so beware!
I learned how to post on a blog, thanks in great deal to a first cousin-once removed, Carole Sevilla Long, that I didn’t even know I had. She wrangled me into joining her WONDERFUL group blog that unfortunately no longer exists. We now share a fun family heritage and a lovely friendship, along with some that I shared that blogging calendar with.
And again, thank you for reading my blog posts.
Bren