Yellow Warbler, late

Setophaga petechia

Yellow Warbler · Prospect Park · 11 October 2025

A Yellow Warbler in Prospect Park in the second week of October, which is the odd part. Yellow Warblers breed in willow scrub and wet thickets across the whole continent and are among the earliest to leave; most have left New York by the middle of September, so this one is a straggler, well behind the rest of its kind.

Bright yellow from the face right through to the undertail, a plain face with the dark eye standing out on it, and yellow edges to the wing feathers, which is what separates it from the other plain yellow warblers of autumn. A Pine Warbler would show white wing bars and a heavier bill; an Orange-crowned would be duller and greener; a Wilson's has plain olive wings with no yellow in them at all.