Juvenile Yellow Warbler with its Mother
Jun 16th, 2011, by Alex Zorach
This photo shows a mother yellow warbler that has been feeding its young, the juvenile yellow warbler on the left. This grayish bird closely resembles the adult birds in shape and size, but this bird still shows most the downy grayish plumage, although it shows some yellow feathers on its wings.
This photo was taken at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge near the Philadelphia airport. The area was teeming with yellow warblers, more than I have ever seen before; I conservatively counted 16 birds on a relatively short stretch of the path. There were juveniles at various stages of maturity, and I saw (but was unable to photograph) a group of young yellow warblers actively foraging in a tree with their mother, as well as this younger bird which was being more passive, just sitting and begging for food. I could not capture it in this photo, but hidden back in the foliage was a second juvenile bird. The female yellow warbler in this picture was capturing food to eat that was so small that I was unable to see what it was eating.