Photo by Pixabay • With a black mask, the male common yellowthroat resembles a tiny feathered bandit as he goes about his daily routine interrupted by bouts of singing his “witchety! witchety! witchety!” song.

Photo by Pixabay
With a black mask, the male common yellowthroat resembles a tiny feathered bandit as he goes about his daily routine interrupted by bouts of singing his “witchety! witchety! witchety!” song.

A hummingbird flew in to one of my porch feeders at 6:28 p.m. on April 23. The arrival made this bird the first hummingbird I have seen this spring. Although quite a bit later than expected, I decided that it’s better late than never. The bird, a male with a dazzling red throat, flew right to the feeder hanging on the porch. I had switched out the water in all three of my feeders only a few minutes prior to the bird’s initial appearance. The bird knew exactly where the feeder was hanging, so I am confident he had already been around for a few days.

There have been other new arrivals, too. A hooded warbler announced its return in song, singing from the shaded woodlands the same day the first hummingbird arrived. On April 28, a common yellowthroat made sure to get noticed by singing from some willows near the creek before popping into view as I watched through binoculars.

In the past week, flocks of chimney swifts have also begun twittering and swooping over the streets of Erwin.

A few more people have shared their stories of first spring sightings of hummingbirds.

Ann Windsor in Selmer, Tennessee, posted on my Facebook page on April 23 that her hummingbirds had returned a few days earlier. “He has set up his sole ownership of our feeder,” she noted.
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“I just now saw my first hummingbird of the season here in Abingdon,” Mary Ragland commented on my Facebook page on April 23.
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Betty Lacy in Elizabethton has also welcomes back hummingbirds.
“My hummingbirds are here daily,” she wrote. “I love to watch them.”
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Dawn Peters in Jonesborough saw her first hummingbird on April 23.
“I saw my first one about 5 p.m. today,” she wrote on my Facebook page.
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Linda Cauley noted that she is hosting two of the tiny birds.
“Two showed up in Unicoi at my feeders,” she wrote on my Facebook page.
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The hummingbirds at Kaylynn Wilster’s home at Boone Lake played a bit coy.
“I didn’t see mine at first but the level in the feeders was dropping so I knew they were here,” she wrote on my Facebook page on April 23. “Saw my first one about four days ago — a beautiful male.”
She also saw one at a greenhouse that she visited recently. “The greenhouses go to great effort to get them out,” she added in her comment.
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Donna Barnes Kilday in Erwin saw her first on April 14.
“Now I have at least two that want control of both feeders,” she wrote on my Facebook page. “So much fun to watch!”

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Philip Laws in Limestone Cove wrote a comment on my Facebook page on April 27 about his hummingbirds.
“We have had them for several days,” Philip wrote.
“My favorite story was when I returned to a former house that we had been out of a couple of years,” he wrote. “A male came up and flew to and circled the spot where a feeder had hung two years before. Needless to say, I quickly returned with a feeder and kept it going for the rest of that summer.”
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Mack Hayes, who resides in the Bowmantown community in Washington County, saw his first male ruby-throated hummingbird on April 22. In another comment on my Facebook page, he added a few days later, a female hummingbird has also arrived.
“Glad to see they made it back,” Mack wrote.
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As I mentioned at the start of the column, warblers have been putting in sporadic appearances this spring.

I thought I’d spotlight the common yellowthroat this week. The male common yellowthroat looks like a dapper feathered bandit with his black mask with a silvery-gray eye stripe, brown upper parts and a bright yellow throat. Females have the yellow throat but lack the black mask.
The website All About Birds notes in a profile on the species that male common yellowthroats arrive first on breeding grounds in the spring and begin defending territories.

According to the profile, fighting among males grows more intense once the female birds arrive. Researchers have also found that the black mask of male yellowthroats acts as a trigger for some of this fighting. Some enterprising researchers added a black paper mask to a stuffed female yellowthroat. When placed within view of male yellowthroats, the stuffed bird weathered attacks from territorial males.

Photo by USFWS • The male common yellowthroat wears a mask like a feathered bandit.

The common yellowthroat at my home was probably one of these eager males ready to get a head start on the summer’s nesting season. Common yellowthroats are one of the many warblers that nest in the Northeast Tennessee during the summer months. They can be found from lower elevation to higher ones, but they will usually not be found outside of a habitat that offers dense vegetation to their particular liking. A weedy slope in a backyard, a marshy stand of cattails, or overgrown fields are some places suitable for this noisy if “under the radar” bird.
The common yellowthroat is one of the birds that benefits from a lawn and garden that are not kept trimmed and manicured. They will only thrive in habitats that offer dense thickets and other tangles of vegetation. To attract birds like the common yellowthroat, keep some corners of your property in a more “natural” state. The neighbors may look askance, but the birds will thank you.

It’s the female yellowthroat that will build the nest. She lays one to six eggs. She will often locate the nest close to the ground, but it’s always well hidden.

The common yellowthroat belongs to a genus of warblers known as Geothlypsis. Three other members – MacGillivray’s warbler, mourning warbler and Kentucky warbler – in the genus are resident in the United States and Canada for part of the year.

It’s easy to detect the presence of this warbler in the springtime. The male invariably gives himself away by singing his ringing syllables of “Witchety! Witchety! Witchety!” In fact, my recent visitor alerted me to his presence by doing just that. As with many warblers, the male’s song helps attract mates and also establishes the boundaries of his territory.

Although this warbler would prefer to skulk under a weedy canopy, it has one weakness. Common yellowthroats are incredibly curious birds. They will respond to squeaking or mechanical bird calls. Unlike some birds that pop into view for a brief look before diving back into cover, common yellowthroats can often be called into view several times during an observation.

There will no doubt be plenty of migrant sightings as we continue into May. Look for such vibrant visitors as orioles, tanagers, indigo buntings and rose-breasted grosbeaks in the coming days.  To share a sighting, make a comment or ask a question, email me at ahoodedwarbler@aol.com.