Some Warblers are Weird

This nugget comes to us from the Houston Chronicle’s Bridwoman—a delightful blogger, bird-lover and Astros fan from South Montgomery County, Texas. We are smitten with her recent post “The Weirdest Warbler,” in which she describes the calls and behavior of the yellow-breasted chat.

Of course, the initial impulse was to change our name to The Denver Chat—especially once we discovered that we have so much in common with this fine fellow.

First off, it seems that we are both skulkers.

For the ol’ yellow-breast, this means hiding out in thick hedges and trees and scouting for berries, insects and small reptiles or amphibians.

“Unless they announce their presence with song, it is possible for them to be around but remain unseen,” says the Birdwoman. ” They could well have visited my yard last year but I never saw them.”

This is so totally us. Though we usually call it lurking, we like to hide out in densely dumpstered alleyways drinking beer and scouting for, uh, hmmm, not sure. Good times, maybe. But we absolutely visited the Birdwoman’s yard last year and she didn’t even know were were there.

She had just finished gardening and was enjoying a Sue Grafton novel in the shade. The pitcher of lemonade at her side looked mighty refreshing, and, from our hideout in her manicured hedges, we almost cleared our throats to ask for a glass.

“The chat’s songs are a distinctive and weird mixture of clucks, whistles, cackles and hoots … Chats are much larger [than most warblers] and they have heavy thick bills and long tails … They move deliberately and relatively slowly through the hedgerow as they search for food.”

Us, us and us again!

“During courtship, the male that normally is so secretive may put on a more open display. Sitting on a high and exposed perch, he begins his song and while in mid-verse, he takes wing, spiraling high into the air before fluttering back to his perch and beginning the sequence all over again.”

Yup. Us.

“Recent DNA studies of the bird have supported what many have long suspected. They don’t really fit with wood-warblers at all. Nobody has quite figured out yet where they do fit, so for the moment, they still pass as a big, weird warbler.”

This is us, too. We haven’t had any DNA tests done, but we don’t really fit in with our peers. We can pass for warblers at ice cream socials and mixers, but really we’re just big weirdos.