It was like a spot of sunlight peeking through clouds on a gray, overcast day.
Looking out the window, there was an animated flock of birds splashing about wildly in the small garden fountain on the back patio.
It’s not an uncommon sight on warm sunny days, but it seemed a bit unusual although a welcome sight on one of our rare, dreary days.
I wasn’t sure who these visitors were until something startled them and they burst into flight, flashing the distinctive little yellow spots at the base of the tail that gives this bird its name.
The yellow-rumped warblers, affectionately known as butterbutts, had arrived.
Arrived from where, you might ask?
These colorful winter visitors spend their summers far to the north, with some flocks traveling as far as the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. When winter approaches, they move south until it’s time to reverse their journey to summer breeding grounds. Turns out that San Diego County is about the middle of their winter range.
Like many nature lovers, I find the approach of fall to be an emotional time as days get shorter, flowers fade and many of our joyful summer visitors depart.
Summers here are filled with colorful and entertaining birds like hooded orioles, flocks of bushtits and various species of hummingbirds. They frequent our feeders or forage in our gardens and add energy and joy to the times we spend outdoors.
But many of our summer friends depart each fall to spend winters in more tropical climates to the south.
For me, it’s always like loving family leaving after an extended visit. We miss them.
Add gloomy winter days, less sunlight and the absence of these welcome visitors and it just amplifies the fading of a beautiful season.
But I am amazed at how nature always seems to find ways to thrill us.
The yellow-rumped warblers will now the natty, white-crowned sparrows as our most numerous winter visitors. If you recall, the white crowns typically arrive in early September and are now feeding robustly at backyard seed feeders. They have also migrated in from great distances to the north.
You may also spot flashes of iridescent blue in your birdbath as western bluebirds expand their range during the nonbreeding season.
The newly arrived butterbutts are easy to identify, once you get a look at that bright yellow spot that flashes as they take flight.
When perched, folded wings often hide the yellow rump patch, but there are other identifying marks, including bright yellow patches on the throat and just below the wings on their flanks.
Females have similar markings, but colors are a bit less vivid. Immature birds are very pale.
While these winter visitors are more numerous on our coastal slopes, they range widely throughout San Diego County, even into areas of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. I have frequently encountered large flocks in the ocotillo forests in Coyote Canyon.
In their winter habitat they prefer insects, fruit and berries, including juniper, poison oak, raisins, suet, and peanut butter at feeders. They will also feed on orange slices and sunflower seeds.
For several mornings now, it’s been a marvelous ritual as clutches of these joyful yellow rumps show up to frolic in the garden fountain. It’s such a delight watching as they chatter and splash.
Perhaps it’s how they begin their day, or maybe the fountain is their first stop to clean up after the long migration. Kind of like you when visiting the car wash after a long road trip.
Whatever the reason, I will savor these winter visitors that bring color and vitality to my mountaintop gardens.
For now, these colorful birds are something to be thankful for. Until the dandelions, green meadows and wildflowers of spring once again color our world, the flash of yellow from the butterbutts will brighten our lives.
I call winter the season of hope and anticipation.
With every winter rainstorm there is hope for abundance and a wish for enough rain to turn the arid desert sands or our chaparral slopes into a vast spring superbloom of wildflowers.
The anticipation is even greater as I look forward to the next crop of coyote pups captured on our game cameras, the awkward red-tailed hawk fledglings accompanied by parents as they learn to hunt, or the baby quail drinking at my ground level pond.
We await the return of nesting house wrens who provide a surrogate family that we watch with a tiny video camera inside their nestbox. For several years now we have marveled at eggs being laid, chicks hatching and then fledglings flying off into the great world.
For now, there is still joy on Mt. Whoville as another cast of characters arrives for Nature’s winter debut.
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