Page "Yellow-rumped Warbler" Paragraph 8

When bugs are scarce, the Myrtle Warbler also enjoys eating fruit, and the wax-myrtle berries which gave it its name.

It is the only warbler able to digest such waxy material.

The ability to use these fruits allows it to winter farther north than other warblers, sometimes as far north as Newfoundland.

Other commonly eaten fruits include juniper berries, poison ivy, poison oak, greenbrier, grapes, Virginia creeper and dogwood.

They eat wild seeds such as from beach grasses and goldenrod, and they may come to feeders, where they'll take sunflower seeds, raisins, peanut butter, and suet.

On their wintering grounds in Mexico they've been seen sipping the sweet honeydew liquid excreted by aphids.

Male Yellow-rumped Warblers typically tend to forage higher in the trees than females do.

While foraging with other warbler species, they sometimes aggressively displace other species, including Pine Warblers and Blackburnian Warblers.