25 Amazing Black and Yellow Birds with Pictures

Nature always has its ways of exposing its miracles. One of the wonders of nature that are as amazing as any other wonders in the world is the form of a bird’s colors. Birds have their own unique color combinations that make each of them stunning and amazing. One of the favorite color combinations in birds is the unique mixture of yellow and black colors. Some of the birds with these unique color combinations are warblers, finches, tanagers, orioles, and meadowlarks.

What kind of birds have yellow and black colors? Or perhaps, you want to know more about birds behind glasses of water? In this post, you will find 25 beautiful birds in black and yellow colors with their pictures. Enjoy!

1. American Goldfinch

This small bird has a bright yellow body, black wings, and a black tail. The male American goldfinch has a brighter yellow color with a black color on top of its head. It has a small head, a short tail, and long wings. The bird is often found in large groups at bird feeders and is considered a social bird except for the breeding season. American goldfinch belongs to the finches family, and they are common to be found in the U.S.

American goldfinch or also known as Spinus Tristis, is unique in the way that it sheds its feathers twice a year, in late winters and in late summers. The bird is originally from Nearctic, but it migrates to Alberta or North America. They adapt to the places they migrate to by feeding on grasses, seeds, weeds, barks of young twigs, and buds. The bird is very local and is expected to have a life span of 3 to 6 years in nature.

2. Citrine Wagtail

Living for their name, these birds are famous for their wagging tails. They are also known as Motacilia Citreola, and they belong to a small songbird family. Citrine Wagtail has a beautiful combination of black and yellow colors. It has a yellow head with black edges and nape and an all-black beak. The males are prominent and look amazing because of their bright yellow color. Some citrine wagtails live in watery habitats. The bird has a slender body of 15.5 to 17 inches in length or just the same size as a sparrow.

These birds migrate to Asia in winters and are widely spread throughout the continent.

3. Lesser Goldfinch  

This bird has a very similar appearance to American Goldfinch. Lesser goldfinch is usually found in small groups, and it joins with the American goldfinch in the southwest. The bird is scientifically called Spinus Psaltria, and the adult male has a yellow body and a black tail and back. The diurnal and arboreal bird mostly eats sunflower seeds and prefers to be on high branches covered with barks and leaves. It used to fly up and down in a flap-bound style.

4.  Yellow Browed Bulbul

With the scientific name Acritillas Indica, the Yellow-browed bulbul, a species of bulbul family, is famous for its dark eyes and clean face.

It has a yellow underside body and a black upperside. This songbird is usually found in Southern India and Sri Lanka. The bird is dioecious, and it eats berries, gazes from perch, and small insects. Yellow-browed bulbul is easily be located because of its famous loud calls.

5. Western tanager

The western tanager is an American songbird with an attractive mixture of black and yellow colors. The bird is 7.3 inches long and is also known as Piranga ludovicana. It has a brilliant yellow body, coal-black back, tail, and wings, and an orange-red head. They live in an open forest among the trees. It is also found in a fairly open conifer forest in the breeding season. The bird’s food includes dried and fresh fruits. It also eats freshly cut oranges so it was considered the biggest threat to commercial crops.  

6. Yellow-bellied prinia

The bird that is also known as Prinia Flaviventris, is a unique small bird from prinia family that has a long graduated tail. Its lower body part is yellow, while the upper part is black and with a white throat. The bird is mostly found in Southeast Asia, Pakistan, and India. The prinia lives in meadows, lowland fields, and wetlands habitats and likes to nest in low bushes or small shrubs.

8. Coppersmith barbet

The coppersmith barbet is a beautiful bird that has a unique combination of yellow and black, and other colors. It has a yellow color around its eyes and throat, green and red on its upper chest, and black color on its upper head. Its scientific name is Megalaima haemacephala, and it has the famous metronomic sound that resembles a coppersmith striking a metal. It is originally from India and Southeast Asia.

9.  Scott’s oriole

The Scott’s oriole, also named Icterus parisorum, is a medium-sized bird belonging to the icterid family. The oriole is 9.1 inches long and well-known as the mountain oriole or dessert oriole. The bird inhabits mountain slopes and high deserts in southwestern America and central Mexico. It has a black head, breast, tail, and black wings, while the lower part of its body is yellow. The bird nests on tall trees such as junipers, yuccas, and pines, but its bright color is easy to spot.

The bird feeds on invertebrates, nectar, and fruits. It sometimes eats Monarch butterflies, too. Studies show that many orioles are dependent on yucca plants, as they feed on nectar obtained from the flowers and insects on the tree. They also take fibers from the tree to build their nests.

10. Hooded oriole

Its scientific name is Icterus cuculatus, and it has a mixture of black and yellow-orange color. The hooded oriole is a medium bird of 8 inches in length. It is also named as “bird of palm trees” and is famous for building its nest under palm fronds. The hooded oriole belongs to the Icteridae, and it is easily found in California and Texas. The male has a yellow to orange color with a black face, beak, tail, back, and wings with two white bars, while the female has yellowish and olive shades. The bird eats fruits, nectar, and small insects. It is often found in hummingbird feeders.

11. Great hornbills

Hornbills are famous black and yellow birds

The great hornbill is an enormous bird with about 40 to 48 inches in length and 5 feet of wingspan. Its scientific name is Buceros bicornis, and it’s also called a great Indian hornbill. The bird has a beautiful color mixture, and it is a very prominent bird in Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The great hornbill is omnivorous, and it has a very large beak. Its food includes small insects and animals, fruits, and figs. The female has a unique technique for laying eggs. When laying eggs, the female gets inside a hole in the tree, and both genders work to cover the hole with mud, and they only leave a small hole for food. 

The bird lives in deciduous forests and wet forests habitats. It can live up to 35 years and even longer. However, this unique bird is now categorized as almost endangered. It is important to conserve the hornbill as it maintains a healthy ecosystem and food chain by eating insects and small animals.

12. Eastern meadowlark

It is a medium-sized songbird from the Icterid family. Sturnella magna is widely spread in the southeast and eastern America and is mostly found in fields and meadows. The lower part of the bird is bright yellow, while the upper part has black streaks. It has a black V-shape across its chest. The breeding meadowlark has a bright yellow body while the non-breeding has a pale yellow color. It has a flat head, short tail, pointed beak, and rounded wings.

The meadowlark usually flies low with a sequence of short glides and rapid fluttering. They live in grasslands, farm fields, and wetlands.

13. Flame-throated bulbul

The bird is part of the bulbul family with the scientific name Rubigula Gularis. It has a unique mixture of yellow on its lower body, olive color on the upper, a bright red neck, and a black-colored head with pale eyes. The bird is omnivorous and mostly found in southwestern India. It eats small insects and fruits and prefers to live in thick bushes of overgrown forests. The bulbul mostly moves in groups.

14. Orange-breasted trogon

The orange-breasted trogon is a colorful bird that is mostly found in lowlands and forests in Java, Southern China, and Southeast Asia. Its scientific name is Harpactes oreskios, and it’s a medium bird of about 25 to 31 cm in length. The male has a mixture of the yellow head, black tail, and white body, while the female has a grey-brown head and yellow lower part. The bird eats insects and arthropods.

15. Silver-eared mesia

Leiothrix Argentauris is a beautiful small babbler and is originally from Southeast Asia. The bird is mostly kept in a cage, and it has a unique combination of amazing colors. Mesia is a small bird with 6.1 to 6.7 inches long, and it has silver patches around the ears. It has a yellow body, a black-colored head, a red wing patch, and a grey tail. The color combinations between the male and the female are similar, except for the throat. The female has a yellow throat while the male’s throat is red-orange.

Mesia mostly moves in a group of six to 30. This noisy bird eats fruits, seeds, and small insects.

16. Western meadowlark

The bird is from the Icterid family and has a medium body of 8.5 inches long. Its scientific name is Sturnella neglacta, and it is widespread in the grasslands. The bird is famous for its flute-like sound. It is a chunky bird with a stiff and spikey tail, short and rounded wings, and a flat head with a long slender beak and a round shoulder. The breeding bird has a bright yellow lower body, while the non-breeding one has pale yellow; both have black V-shaped bands on the chests.

Its food includes berries, seeds, and insects. The western meadowlark is famous for digging a hole in the ground to get some bugs and insects as its food.

17. Wilson wabler

The bird is one of the smallest warblers, and its scientific name is Cardellina pusilla. The bird has a yellow lower body and an olive upper part with a black crown on its head. It has a small, thin beak and black eyes. The head size is large compared to the body. It eats insects and likes to pick insects from foliage. It prefers to live in mountain meadows or near streams.

18. Hooded wabler

The bird is also known as Setophaga Citrinia, and it has a small, proportional, and heavy body with a thick neck. The male has a bright yellow face, black hood, and black throat, while the female has a yellow face and throat with an olive hood and back. The bird prefers to live in an understory of shrubs as its habitat, where it can easily get some insects from foliage. It also lives in an understory of mature forests and smaller forest patches. The bird is commonly found in wooden swamps in the eastern of the U.S., and it gets food by hawking on insects and spiders.

19.  Sooty-capped bush-tanager

It is a small tanager-like sparrow with the scientific name Chlorospingus pileatus. The bird is mostly found in the highlands of Western Panama and Costarica. It has a yellow lower body while its upper body is olive. It has dark cheeks and head, a white throat, and a thick black beak. Both the male and female look very similar. The bird is social, it mostly moves in flocks, and sometimes it joins other species too when it travels. It eats small insects, spiders, and fruits.

20. Townsend’s wabler

A Townsend’s wabler is a small songbird and is also known as Setophaga townsend. It has a yellow breast with the black flank streak, olive back, and white wings. The bird lives in coniferous and mixed forests with understories habitats. You can find it in Mexico and Central America, but it spreads throughout the U.S. during winters. The bird eats insects such as beetles and spiders, seeds, nectar, and berries.

21. Bokmakierie shrikes

The bokmakierie shrike is a colorful shrike with bright yellow, green, black, and grey colors. Its scientific name is Telophorus Zeulonus, and it has a strong beak. The bird usually lives in South Africa and also in open habitats such as semi-desert scrub and highveld koppies. It prefers to live alone or in pairs. The shrike is famous for its beautiful sound. Its food includes frogs, insects, small birds, snakes, and lizards.

22. Yellow headed black bird

Its scientific name is Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus, and it has a medium-sized black body with a golden-yellow head and a white patch on its wing. The bird usually lives westward of the Mississippi River, and it travels throughout the U.S. during summers and winters. It feeds on seeds, nuts, grains, and sometimes grasshoppers and spiders.

23. Black-lor tits

It is a tiny passerine bird, and its scientific name is Aegithalous concinnus. The bird is originally from the Himalayas, and it has yellow cheeks and a black head and throat. The male has a brighter color than the female. It is insectivorous, and its food includes insects and spiders, but sometimes it eats fruits too.

24. Baya weaver

Ploceus philippinus is a unique bird that is mostly found throughout Southeast Asia. It is famous for the retro-shaped nest it builds high in a tree. The nest is hanging among the tree leaves, and it has a tube-like entrance to get into a central chamber. The bird moves in flocks that are mostly found in grasslands and cultivated areas. The male builds the nest during the breeding season in the monsoon. The bird is polygamous, both male and female.

25. Evening grosbeak

It is also known as Coccothraustes vespertinus, and it is a member of the finch family. The bird is a medium-sized songbird of 16 to 22 cm in length. It has a thick neck, a full chest, and a short tail like other birds from this species. The male has a black head with a bright yellow stripe around the eyes, and white patches on the wings, while the female mostly has a grey body with black wings and yellow color on its neck and flanks. Both males and females have massive conical beaks.

It is a social bird and that lives in flocks during winters. The bird is secretive during breeding seasons. It lives in deciduous and coniferous forest habitats and feeds on sunflower seeds. 

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