Yellow-breasted Chat, Icteria virens

Yellow-breasted Chat, Icteria virens auricoliss. Photograph taken within a residential community in Hereford, Arizona, May 2007. Photograph and identification courtesy of Karen LeMay, Sierra Vista, Arizona (naturewideimages.com).

Yellow-breasted Chat, Icteria virens auricoliss. Photograph taken in rural Copala, Sinaloa, February 2019. Photograph and identification courtesy of David F Smith, Alamos, Sonora.

The Yellow-breasted Chat, Icteria virens auricoliss, is one of two subspecies of Yellow-breasted Chat, both of which are found in Mexico. They are the sole member of the Icteriidae Family, a family that was established as recently as 2017. They are also known as the Long-tailed Chat and in Mexico as buscabreña and chipe grande.

The Yellow-breasted Chat is mid-sized in stature. The sexes are similar in appearance. They have a large bill with strongly curved culmen, and long tail. Their upperparts are olive green to grayish olive; their chin, throat, and breast are lemon-yellow, contrasting with mainly white belly and undertail coverts. Their face is grayish with black lores, a white supercilium, with a white crescent under the eyes. The males have a black bill, and the females have a brownish black bill. The bills turn lighter during breeding season and the males have a black mouth-lining while the females is pink to dark gray. Their iris is dark brown or hazel and their legs and feet vary from steel blue to dark-olive brown to black.

The Yellow-breasted Chat are found in low, dense vegetation with an open tree canopy, including shrubby habitat along stream, swamp, and pond margins. They are elusive, secretive, and skulking and frequently overlooked and seldom seen. The females are normally found closer to the ground than males. The adults feed on small invertebrates (insects and spiders), fruits and berries. They breed in southern Canada and the United States. During breeding season the males are more visible. Both sexes are known for their extended nocturnal forays where extrapair mating occurs. They are considered to be a complete migrant moving between breeding areas in southern Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico, and overwintering areas in central and southern Mexico and Central America. The Yellow-breasted Chat has been poorly studied and very limited information about their behavioral patterns and biology has been documented. They have life spans of up to twelve years.

The Yellow-breasted Chat is unique in structure, appearance, and behavior is readily identified. They are similar to the Common Yellowthroat, Geothlypis trichas, and the Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, Geothlypis poliocephala (both with smaller bodies, smaller bills, shorter tails, and different facial patterns.

In Mexico the Yellow-breasted Chat overwinters within both that Atlantic and Pacific Slopes being found from central Tamaulipas and Yucatán Peninsula south to Panama and in Baja California Sur and from southern Sinaloa south to Colima and Oaxaca at elevations up to 1,500 m (4,920 feet). The auricollis subspecies is found in the western portions of the above ranges. Breeding populations have been found in northern Baja California; from Sonora south to Nayarit; and in the interior from Chihuahua south over the plateau to Zacatecas.

From a conservation perspective the Yellow-breasted Chat is currently considered to be of Least Concern with stable, widely distributed populations. Their long-term viability is threatened by the loss of dense ground cover and shrubby areas caused by human development. They are listed as threatened, endangered or of special-concern in some Canadian Provinces and in some of the States of the United States.