Yellow-breasted Chat

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Chats

Yellow-breasted ChatIcteria virens

ORDER: Passeriformes
FAMILY: Icteriidae

Basic Description

The Yellow-breasted Chat offers a cascade of song in the spring, when males deliver streams of whistles, cackles, chuckles, and gurgles with the fluidity of improvisational jazz. It’s seldom seen or heard during the rest of the year, when both males and females skulk silently in the shadows of dense thickets, gleaning insects and berries for food. Larger and chunkier than a warbler, the chat is a widespread breeder in shrubby habitats across North America, venturing to Central America for the winter.

More ID Info

Year-roundBreedingMigrationNonbreeding

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Find This Bird

Though widespread, Yellow-breasted Chats can be hard to find, thanks to their habit of skulking in dense thickets. You’ll have the most success looking (or listening) for them early in the breeding season, when male performs his extensive repertoire of loud whistles, rattles, catcalls, grunts, and other sounds. He often sings from an exposed perch or while doing an exaggerated display flight that ends with a thumping sound (probably made by his wings). Pay special attention to birds that make scolding sounds but remain hidden in thickets; with patience and perhaps a few pishing sounds you may coax a chat into view.

Other Names

Reinita Grande (Spanish)
Ictérie polyglotte (French)

Cool Facts
- The Yellow-breasted Chat has always been a mystery to taxonomists—it looks similar to warblers but is larger, with a more varied repertoire of songs and calls, and also has other differences in behavior and anatomy. The species was placed in the warbler family (Parulidae) for decades, but in the late 2010s was given its own family (Icteriidae), in recognition of these differences.
- Though a small percentage of males have two mates at once, most appear to be monogamous during the breeding season. Female aggression may help enforce this monogamy. However, some infidelity happens behind the scenes: in a Kentucky study, one-third of nests contained at least one chick sired by another male.
- Brown-headed Cowbirds often lay their eggs in nests of Yellow-breasted Chats. Some breeding pairs will desert a parasitized nest, while others accept the cowbird egg and raise the chick as their own.
- The oldest Yellow-breasted Chat on record, a female, was at least 11 years, 11 months old when she was recaptured and released at an Arizona banding station in 2016.