Icteria virens
Silhouette: Sheatherius · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
The yellow-breasted chat (Icteria virens) is a large songbird in its own family, Icteriidae, that is found in North and Central America. It was once placed in the New World warbler family Parulidae and is occasionally placed in the similarly named New World blackbird family, Icteridae.
The yellow-breasted chat was formally described in 1758 by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the thrushes in the genus Turdus, coined the binomial name Turdus virens, and specified the type locality as "America". The specific epithet is Latin meaning 'green'. The locality has been restricted to South Carolina. Linnaeus based his account on the "yellow brested chat" that had been described and illustrated by the English naturalist Mark Catesby in his book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. It is now the only species placed in the genus Icteria that was introduced in 1808 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot. It is also the only species placed in the family Icteriidae that was introduced (as Icterieae) in 1858 by the American naturalist Spencer Baird.
The yellow-breasted chat was formerly... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | León | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 2 | Houston | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 3 | Los Angeles | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | San Antonio | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Denver | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 6 | Toronto | 🇨🇦 Canada | |
| 7 | Guadalajara | 🇲🇽 México | |
| 8 | San Pedro Sula | 🇭🇳 Honduras | |
| 9 | San Diego | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 10 | Austin | 🇺🇸 United States |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | National Zoological Park | 🇺🇸 United States |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-breasted Chat sighting in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on a given day, based on 237 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 95th most-seen of the 173 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May to July
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Yellow-breasted Chat in Great Smoky Mountains National Park on a given day, against under 5% in August to April, the lowest months.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Yellow-breasted Chat sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
8th of 32
Of the 32 parks where we can rate Yellow-breasted Chat sightings, Great Smoky Mountains National Park ranks 8th at about 10%. The best odds are in Big Bend National Park (United States, about 20%), Biotopo Cerro Cahuí (Guatemala, about 10%) and Death Valley National Park (United States, about 10%).
Same family: Parulidae
The closest relatives of the Yellow-breasted Chat that you can see in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (family Parulidae, New World Warblers) are Northern Parula (about 40%), Black-throated Green Warbler (about 30%) and Hooded Warbler (about 30%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Yellow-breasted Chat is recorded against all the birds logged in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (237 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
