Yellow-breasted Chats

Yellow-breasted Chat***

Icteria virens
This is an oversized, eagerly sought, but very rare and reclusive warbler that is highly specialized in its habitat needs. It prefers large tracts of extremely dense shrub that occurs only temporarily during plant succession. An example of the transiency of this bird’s breeding presence is at Letchworth SP. At one time it could be fairly reliably found in shrubby fields on top of the gorge near the park boundaries, park naturalist Douglas Bassett notes. However, as those areas have continued to progress to young woodlands, the chat has “gone by the wayside.” The last remaining habitat in the park is a shrub zone at the high water mark – a narrow band maybe 100 to 200 yards wide along the side of the gorge, extending some 35 miles from behind the dam back up the gorge, Bassett observes. Unfortunately, it is hard to know how many, if any pairs, are nesting there because access is so difficult. Chip Perrigo and Roger Clark, however, didn’t have to worry about finding this bird’s highly specialized habitat on 30 May 1977. They had stopped for gasoline at a service station at Island Cottage and Latta roads in Greece, and, while “investigating a bird in a nearby hedgerow, a chat flew in and alighted directly over Clark’s head.” (BA, 1 June 1977)
BackgroundOur largest wood warbler probably benefited from the clearing of forests during the 1800s, and the abandonment of marginal farmland by the middle of the 1900s. This created more of the low, dense, nearly impenetrable thickets that constitute its preferred breeding habitat. More recently, as this successional habitat has matured into forest, numbers of this species have been reported declining in the east – even as some western populations appear to be increasing. Males sing, on average, 62 different song types, including “whistles, cackles, mews, catcalls, caw notes, rattles, squawks, gurgles and pops,” notes the profile of this species in The Birds of North America series. Many experts have questioned its placement in the wood warbler group, because of its size, unique vocalizations, and certain anatomical differences, but DNA analysis tends to confirm the placement. Even where suitable habitat exists, numbers may vary from year to year. On one study area in Ohio, numbers ranged from 43 pairs to 103 over a four-year period with the changes “not attributable to changes in availability of suitable breeding habitat.” Many long-term declines “are reported from locales at the periphery of the range and from small geographic regions.” That is “not surprising for a species adapted to exploiting short-lived habitats.” (BNA 575: 1, 8, 19)
Local history This species is at the northern fringe of its breeding range here, and apparently has always been extremely local in distribution.In part this is because of its highly selective preference for very dense thickets, “preferring a denser covert than even the Chestnut-sided warbler and the Catbird,” Eaton (1914) noted. He listed it as a fairly common but local summer resident in Livingston, rare in Monroe, but gave no indication of occurrence in Wayne. “Definite breeding dates” included Kendall, Orleans County in June 1885 and 1889, Chili on 26 May 1890, and an undisclosed location in Monroe County on 2 June 1902. (Eaton II: 455-456, I: county charts)R. E. Horsey, in his listing of birds seen at Rochester and Monroe County from 1913 to 1936, reported only one sighting on 23 May 1920.One at Highland Park on 16 September 1949 prompted Edson to observe that he could not find a subsequent instance of breeding in Monroe County after 1902. (WBR, 26 September 1949) Leo Tanghe does not list it among the breeding birds of the Rochester area for 1946-1952. (GOS, May/August 1953) Indeed, when Tanghe tallied up sightings from 1,665 outings by Genesee Ornithological Society members within a 50-mile radius of Rochester for the years 1951-1954, he could find only six sightings, all of single birds. (KB5: 69: 6A-6B) Even as late as 1956, according to John Brown, this species was “so rare” that it was not even listed on the society’s checklist of birds of this area. (BA, 28 June 1956) However, Edson predicted its chances of becoming established would increase as farmland was abandoned and reverted to the chat’s favored bramble thickets. (WBR, 19 May 1952) In 1956 he reported it had nested for at least two seasons in the stunted woods around the stone quarries near Le Roy. (WBR, 18 June 1956) Five were near LeRoy on 21 June 1958 (KB8:81) where “they are known to be of regular occurrence.” The scrubby brush along Crusher Road in the same quarry area produced three singing birds in 1956, and was a location where Chats could be “usually found with relative ease.” (BA, 17 June 1954, 21 June 1956, 23 June 1966) In 1974, Richard O’Hara, visited the old quarry during the summer and found three chats – along with Blue-winged and Golden-winged warblers. (BA, 3 July 1974)Two birds were observed at Mendon Ponds Park on 29 June 1956 (Whites, Dakins), one of which was carrying food, a sure sign of breeding. (KB6:92) Small wonder, then, that the Goshawk monthly summary for May 1957 observed that “chats seem to be increasing steadily as a breeding species in suitable habitat in this area.” Two pair were recorded nesting at Mendon Ponds (Starling) in 1962. (KB12: 92)However, as the Breeding Bird Atlas projects indicate, this species, if anything, is now declining. Status
The Monroe County annotated list (1985) described this as an irregular, rare summer resident and a casual, very rare winter visitant.Livingston County, Fox (1998) considered this a casual very rare winter visitant and an irregular fairly common to rare summer resident.
Occurrence
Spring: The Monroe County annotated list (1985) indicated a range of arrival dates from 6 May to 12 June, with a mid range, or “normal arrival time” of 12 to 18 May. Summer/breeding status: The Breeding Bird Atlas projects document that this species is extremely limited in its presence as a breeder here, and may be losing ground.

One of the most reliable breeding locations, for example, had been Letchworth SP, where nesting by as many as 10 pairs was documented during five of 10 years from 1994-2003. (Burger and Liner, pp. 76-77) “The Mt. Morris Dam preserves the habitat of this species because spring runoff and snow melt backs up water,” Kurt Fox explains. “Water and ice kill off the understory at different elevations depending upon the amount of water that is held behind the dam. The chat is regular within this zone (between 600 and 700 feet in elevation) . . .” Nonetheless, park naturalist Douglas Bassett describes this species as a “bang or bust” breeder, more numerous some years than others. (Fox, p. 89)Confirmed in three blocks in and around the park during the first project, only “probable” breeding could be documented during the second project.Even more ominous, but not surprising, was the virtual disappearance of this species from Monroe County, where evidence of breeding had been found in seven blocks – indeed, confirmed in two, including Mendon Ponds Park (See GNR for June 1984) – during the first project, but where ongoing suburban sprawl is no doubt eliminating much of this species’ remaining habitat.The picture is equally gloomy across much of the state. At the Federation of New York State Bird Clubs annual meeting in 2003, delegates heard a report that shrubland in the state had been reduced to an estimated 55,000 acres, or only about 0.45 percent of total acreage. (LG, December 2003)
Summer maxima:“Chip” Perrigo found as many as eight in Mendon Ponds Park in June 1972, “and has heard them singing there at all hours, but particularly at night, often after midnight,” John Brown reported. (BA, 6 July 1972) This was considered a “record high count” for the region. (KB 22:169) Five along Nations Road 1-30 June 1998 (Kimball, Fox) was considered an “excellent total for a species that has been scarce in recent years.” (KB48: 329)
Fall: The Monroe County annotated list (1985) indicated a range of departure dates from 1 September to 11 November.
Winter: Rare winter sightings included one observed 4-11 December 1972 (Hedges, Gertner) at Pittsford. (GOS, February 1973) The “bird of the day” during an RBA field trip to Conesus Lake on 13 December 1981 was a chat that “virtually dive-bombed” the participants at Gray Shores while being chased by a mockingbird. It remained until 3 January “thanks to a well-stocked feeder there,” John Brown reported. (BA, 17 December 1981, 7 January 1982; LG, December 1981; February 1982) A roadkill specimen was found on 11 December 1999 (D. Tetlow) in Parma. (LG, February 2000)

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse