Air Date: Week of February 13, 2026

A male common yellowthroat perches atop a treebranch and sings. (Photo: George Gentry, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Common Yellowthroats, one of the most abundant warblers in North America, thrive in places that pickier warblers pass over. BirdNote®’s Ariana Remmel reports that they’re easy to find in urban areas, marshes, overgrown fields and more.

Transcript

[BIRDNOTE THEME]

DOERING: One of the birds that occasionally brightens Daisy’s front yard could easily be the common yellowthroat warbler, chirping and whistling as it darts and dives to find its meals of insects and spiders. Here’s BirdNote®’s Ariana Remmel.

BirdNote®
Common Yellowthroat
Written by Conor Gearin
This is BirdNote.

[Common Yellowthroat song]

Flitting from stem to stem, a yellow bird in a tiny black bandit mask sings with a voice many times his size.

[Common Yellowthroat song]

Common Yellowthroats are one of the most abundant warblers in North America. They’re adaptable birds, thriving in places that pickier warblers pass over. So it’s easy to find yellowthroats in urban areas. Check for them in marshes, overgrown fields, and brushy areas along streams or trails.

[Common Yellowthroat song]

Many people remember the yellowthroat’s song pattern with the phrase “witchety-witchety-witchety!” During the breeding season, males may repeat the song an earworm-inducing 300 times an hour.

[Common Yellowthroat song]

Only adult males have those bandit masks. But females and young males have light brown backs and those signature bright yellow throats, which helps distinguish them from similar-looking warblers.

[Common Yellowthroat call]

To get a good look, you might have to look down rather than up. Yellowthroats spend most of their time among low-growing plants and shrub branches. There, they feast on insects and spiders on leaves and bark, or grab a snack from a fruit bush.
Common Yellowthroats are warblers that are skillful at living alongside people — making them a great introduction to the songs and bright colors of the warbler family.

[Common Yellowthroat song]

I’m Ariana Remmel.
###
Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Content Director: Jonese Franklin

Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Common Yellowthroat ML527195 recorded by Wil Hershberger, and Common Yellowthroat ML219656 recorded by Bob McGuire.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2023 BirdNote April 2023 March 2025
Narrator: Ariana Remmel
ID# COYE-01-2023-04-25 COYE-01
Reference:
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/comyel/cur/introduction
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Yellowthroat/overview

DOERING: For pictures, flit on over to the Living on Earth website, loe.org.

 

Links

Find the common yellowthroat warbler story on the BirdNote® website.