The Common Yellowthroat is one of the first birds that I noticed before birding became a passion. I’ll never forget disembarking from a canoe on the Beaver Creek in Ohio, walking around a shrub and coming face to face with this tiny masked bandit! I still call it the bandit bird! For such a tiny thing, it has a very lusty voice, singing “Whitchity, whitchity, whitch” by throwing his head back and singing with abandon. The female is much drabber, has no mask and a warm yellow on its throat and breast.

For other posts with photos of the masked bandit-bird, see Lake-side Warbler Babies and Birding Tewksbury Grace Farm.