Winter visitor a native Canadian

The yellow-rumped warbler is a common and widely distributed little bird. It can be seen in Southeast Missouri during the winter.

During the summer, this beautiful bird makes its home in the mountainous west, most of Canada and much of Alaska. In autumn, large flocks of yellow-rumped warblers migrate south and disperse over most of the southern quarter of the United States, all of Mexico and Central America.

The yellow-rumped warbler is primarily an insect eater, but during winter it feeds extensively on small berries that grow on shrubs such as the bayberry bush. You may be able to attract this sparrow-sized bird to your bird feeder by supplying raisins or clumps of peanut butter. They will sometimes take sunflower seeds.

The yellow-rumped warbler has a yellow patch of feathers just above where the tail feathers are attached, just as its name implies.

The one I've photographed here lit precariously on a tendril of a wild grapevine only a few feet away from me. The tendril is the part of a vine that wraps around anything that it touches to stabilize the vine.

Through the Woods is a weekly nature photo column by Aaron Horrell.