Of course I was being facetious in imagining a feeding dance, and the interaction between the male and female only lasted for a few seconds, but I hoped someone might have some other insights. We were largely behind brush and about 25 feet from the tree where the birds spent most of their time, and while they might have been reluctant to approach their nest while we were there, they appeared on the whole to be behaving quite normally. (I certainly have enough sense to not disturb nesting birds, but my very active eight-year-old grandson might have been more exposed to the birds at times.) Regarding the female's coloration, Kara was studying Wisconsin birds of the subspecies trichas. But Dunn and Garrett (Warblers) note that "females of campicola and occidentalis [two subspecies of the western interior] have very restricted yellow below, and some may completely lack yellow, instead being creamy whitish." That's what I observed in our birds of the subspecies arizela, whose females Dunn and Garrett don't describe, nor do any other authors I've found. But I was particularly struck by the bright yellow in the tail feathers and wondered if anyone else has seen this.

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu <mailto:guttmanb at evergreen.edu>
Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503

________________________________

From: tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu on behalf of Kara Whittaker
Sent: Mon 6/8/2009 9:59 AM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] RE: Common Yellowthroats: a feeding dance?


Dear Tweeters,

I studied Yellowthroats in WI for my MS and never saw a "feeding dance" or female without a yellow throat. I suspect Burt was quite close to this pair's nest, and they were probably agitated while waiting for a chance to feed the young without being watched. I've seen quite a few species hesitate to feed with a "predator" near the nest, and sometimes even eat the food themselves and start alarm calls if delayed for too long. The yellowthroats I studied were so sensitive to my presence near their nest that I had to set up a video camera to collect data on feeding rates (which resulted in some great footage!). I'd like to remind you all to please be extra sensitive to birds with young this time of year so their growth and survival are not impeded.

Thanks,

Kara Whittaker
West Seattle


>Message: 15
>Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 07:39:13 -0700
>From: "Guttman,Burt" <GuttmanB at evergreen.edu>
>Subject: [Tweeters] Common Yellowthroats: a feeding dance?
>To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
>Message-ID:
> <FB5E1621DB200144B9B4868129BF0BD4052FB8 at birch.evergreen.edu>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

>My grandson Benny and I walked McLane Creek near Olympia yesterday, where our most interesting observation was a pair of Common >Yellowthroats. The female's plumage puzzled me, though. No visible yellow on the breast, but clear yellow undertail coverts and surprisingly >bright yellow streaks on the undersides of the tail feathers; none of my references on warblers show so much yellow in the tails of females. >The male appeared several times with a bill full of stuff, which at first I took to be fluff for nest lining from the cattails disintegrating nearby, >but they were surely collections of insects for feeding nestlings. (Ehrlich's Birder's Handbook says the female builds the nest but both sexes >feed young.) Then the female appeared, also with a bill full of insects, and for a while they had a kind of dancing interaction; under other >circumstances, I might have called it a mating dance, but since they apparently both had food for nestlings hidden in the reeds, the >"dance" ! had more of this kind of feeling: "Oh, Percival, how wonderful that you have such a fine mouthful of food for our babies." "Oh, >Gwendolyn, I see that you, too, have collected nutritious food for our little ones. Let us hurry away and feed them!" Please forgive my >fantasy of a little drama, but I wonder if anyone has ever seen birds interacting in this way during feeding time. I might have expected >Bent's Life Histories to mention such behavior, but they don't.

>Burt Guttman
>The Evergreen State College
>Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu <mailto:guttmanb at evergreen.edu>
>Home: 7334 Holmes Island Road S. E., Olympia, 98503