Yellow-Throated Warbler

Setophaga dominica

I am sometimes puzzled by the common names chosen for birds. But the Yellow-Throated Warbler’s name is so well suited, there should be no confusion. Some have likened the foraging style of this bird to Brown Creepers and Black-and-White Warblers, because it probes crevices and clumps in search of its insect meals.

These birds spend summers in the eastern USA. Many roam to Florida and the Gulf Coast when they’ve ended the breeding season, though some go further south into Mexico, Central America, the West Indies and the Caribbean for the winter.

Not all researchers agree, but many believe there are four subspecies of Yellow-Throated Warbler:

• S.d. albilora breeds from Iowa, Kansas and Texas, and east to the Appalachians. They spend winters in Costa Rica, Cuba, and Jamaica.
• S.d. dominica breeds east of the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Florida. They spend winters in the Bahamas and Greater Antilles.
• S.d. stoddardi lives in Florida and Alabama.
• S.d. flavescens only lives in the Bahamas. There is some disagreement about the legitimacy of this subspecies.

I enjoyed my first meetings with this species while spending time with them during their spring migration through south Texas in April 2021. I returned to Texas in the fall of 2022, and managed to bump into these ‘moth-eating’ warblers again.