The yellow warbler is one of the most common warblers in the Leavenworth area. Singing from up high in a tree, the male appears to be all bright yellow, but if you look closely you can spot fine orange streaks on the breast. He makes this effort to claim a nesting territory and attract a female. Compared to the other warblers here, the song of the yellow warbler is highest, and fastest, and sounds like, “Sweet sweet sweet - I’m so sweet.”

Yellow warblers nest in deciduous trees, those that lose their leaves in the fall. Look for these birds at the Leavenworth Fish Hatchery and on Blackbird Island, or other riparian areas.

Warblers have small thin bills adapted for obtaining insects. Seldom still, they feed as they move through the trees and bushes – searching, gleaning from the bark and leaves, looking, moving, eating an insect, looking, moving to search another leaf or branch. Sometimes they fly out from a perch to catch an insect in the air. In the fall, insects are hard to find so our warblers migrate south to northern Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and the Amazon Basin of Brazil.