The upperparts of the yellow-breasted chat are greenish brown, or you could call it olive gray. There are white “spectacles” around the eye and on the upper and lower margins of the lores (the zone between the eye and the upper base of the beak). The lores are black in males and gray in females. Adult underparts are bright yellow to intense orange on the throat and breast. Belly and under tail feathers are white. Tail long; bill heavy.
The song of the yellow-breasted chat competes with that of the northern mockingbird for variety and duration, but with longer pauses between the short phrases. Chats sit on high perches to sing, uttering a wide variety of mews, chats, whistles, and stutters. The sequence of different, separated phrases seems completely random.
During a singing performance, the chat often flies up into the air and descends with wings slowly flapping, touching at top and bottom of each stroke, with legs dangling below.
The call is a sharp chat or tschat.
Key identifiers:
- Like a very large warbler
- Spectacles white
- Face markings bold
- No markings on the wings or back
- No markings on throat and chest.
Similar species: Many birds are kind of similar to the yellow-breasted chat, in one way or another. The yellow-breasted chat has puzzled ornithologists since it was discovered: What family should it be placed in?
- When first described, it was placed in the true thrush family, alongside the American robin, eastern bluebird, wood thrush, and many more. The bills and body shape are quite similar.
- Then, for a very long time, it was placed in the wood-warbler family, which includes the northern parula, Kentucky warbler, common yellowthroat, and more. Its coloration was like many warblers', but it was a great deal larger than those dainty birds, and its behavior and anatomical forms were quite different.
- At times, other taxonomists have placed the yellow-breasted chat in the New World blackbird family, with which it shares many characteristics, too; in that scheme, it was grouped with blackbirds, orioles, the bobolink, meadowlarks, and cowbirds. (That family is the Icteridae; note the spelling; ik-TER-ih-dee.)
- Finally, in 2017, the yellow-breasted chat was given its own family, the Icteriidae (two i's; ik-tuh-REE-uh-dee). Genetic studies have provided the evidence that it is separate enough from both the wood-warblers and the blackbirds to be placed in a completely separate family. The yellow-breasted chat is the only member of this separate family.
Acoustically, the yellow-breasted chat's jumbled mixture of notes and mimicry of other bird calls might be confused with those of the gray catbird, brown thrasher, and northern mockingbird. The brown thrasher tends to repeat each phrase twice; the northern mockingbird usually repeats three or four times; the gray catbird doesn't repeat phrases much but tends to leave comparatively little space between its various utterances. The chat leaves about a full second between its pronouncements.
Length: 7½ inches (about the size of a bluebird).
Statewide.
Habitat and Conservation
The yellow-breasted chat typically skulks low in dense thickets and shrubs, brush piles, old fields, forest edges, and thick blackberry patches.
Singing males may be visible in an exposed perch, but generally yellow-breasted chats are secretive and hard to see. Listen, then look for them during breeding season (springtime).
Food
Yellow-breasted chats eat a wide variety of insects and spiders, which they pick from the leaves of the dense thickets and shrubs where they prefer to reside. They often grasp a food item with their feet.
They sometimes also eat succulent fruits such as blackberries, elderberries, wild grapes, and blueberries.
Status
Common summer resident in southern Missouri; uncommon in far northwestern Missouri.
The yellow-breasted chat is the only member of its family.
Life Cycle
Present in Missouri from late April through mid-September.
Bulky cup nests are built by the female from a variety of plant fibers, leaves, and stems, and are positioned among the branches of dense shrubs and thickets, some 1–8 feet off the ground. Clutches comprise 3–6 eggs, which are incubated 10–12 days. After hatching, the young remain in the nest another 7–10 days. There can be 1 or 2 broods.
The wintering range extends from coastal Mexico to Panama.
A yellow-breasted chat can live to be more than 11 years old.
Human Connections
Human alterations of the landscape have affected the populations of this thicket, forest-edge-dwelling bird. In the early 20th century, logging and agricultural activities increased this habitat, and the chat populations increased, too. In the second half of the 20th century, forests regrew and large-scale agriculture reduced the amount of shrubby places, leading to a decline in chat populations.
Ecosystem Connections
Chats and other thicket-dwelling insectivores limit the populations of insects, limiting their impact on blackberry, elderberry, hawthorn, sumac, and other shrubs.
This is one of the many birds that can be parasitized by brown-headed cowbirds, which lay their eggs in the nests of other species.
About 350 species of birds are likely to be seen in Missouri, though nearly 400 have been recorded within our borders. Most people know a bird when they see one — it has feathers, wings, and a bill. Birds are warm-blooded, and most species can fly. Many migrate hundreds or thousands of miles. Birds lay hard-shelled eggs (often in a nest), and the parents care for the young. Many communicate with songs and calls.