Yellow-Breasted Chat

My post Saturday on lazuli buntings and Sunday on the green-tailed towhee mentioned a man I met at Big Morongo Canyon Reserve. Today's post continues the story. After watching the feeders for awhile the man asked if I'd ever seen a yellow-breasted chat. I said "no." He asked if I'd like to see one, or at least try to see one, as they are very difficult to see. I said "sure," so he said to follow him. We walked down the trail to the south and then around one of the "closed" signs where we crossed a portion of the Trex path that was missing down to a meadow where a yellow-breasted chat can usually be found in a large tree on the eastern side of the meadow. He played the various sounds a yellow-breasted chat makes from Merlin and it sounded so good I thought it was the chat, itself, instead of Merlin. It has quite an array of different calls. Then the chat flew out of the tree across the meadow. He said he had to go, but now that I knew the call I could wait for it to come back. He said on the way out he might scare it back my way. After sitting awhile, I gave up and headed back up the trail to go home. As I was driving home I thought of the photo of the chat in Merlin he'd shown me and I wondered if I'd actually seen one near the feeders earlier. A strikingly bright yellow bird had flown into the trees around the feeder and I'd taken a few photos before it flew away. When I got home I looked through my photos specifically to see if the yellow bird I'd seen was a chat. It was! I ran my photo through iNaturalist and it confirmed it was a chat, the one I said I'd never seen, just shortly after seeing one!

There are two subspecies of yellow-breasted chat. I saw Turdus virens auricollis, the western subspecies, as illustred above in Birds of the World. This subspecies has a head and back that are less green and more gray, a longer tail and the breast often is washed with some orange, in addition to the yellow. 

This is by far my best photo. The one below is blurry, but gives more of a chest shot. 

Up until 2017 it was included as a member of the New World warbler family, Parulidae, and was considered the largest warbler. It was then moved into its own family, Icterridae, distinct from the New World blackbird family of Icteridae. When it was originally identified in 1758, it was placed in the thrush family. My friend kind of explained this to me, mentioning thrush, then warbler, then tanager, instead of blackbird. I knew he was being modest when he disclaimed being a bird expert. 

Here is the yellow-breasted chat range from Birds of the World.

I was incredibly happy to find three birds I'd never seen before. I am usually ecstatic to find even one. But this Saturday I found three and all related to this new friend I met, whose name I do not know.