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Cape May Warbler

Status Common transient, uncommon in summer. Breeds. It was called "rare" by nineteenth-century authors and was only occasionally recorded prior to 1960. With the development of spruce budworm epidemics in eastern Canada, it has become much more commonplace during migration and is locally common as a nesting bird on Cape Breton Island. First arrivals are generally in mid-May (average 14 May, earliest 6 May). Migration waves may occur from late August through September, and last sightings are routine in October and beyond (average 23 October, latest 13 December).

Description Length: 12-14.5 cm. Adult male: Top of head blackish gray; patch about eye chestnut; rump, and patch on neck below ear, yellow; back brownish olive, boldly striped with black; large white area on wing coverts; underparts pale yellow, streaked with blackish. Adult female: Quite different; upperparts olive-brown; narrow yellow or white line above the eye; lacks chestnut cheek patch but shows yellow patch on side of neck; underparts dull yellow, with faint brown stripes.

Breeding Nest: Placed high up in medium-sized conifers, often among the clusters of cone-bearing branchlets about a metre from the top. Twigs and lichens are used in its construction and its lining is of fur or feathers, or both. Eggs: 3-8, usually 6-7; white, with blotches of rufous heaviest around the larger end. The first nesting record for the province was provided by Ward Hemeon who saw a parent bird feeding young at Bass River, Colchester County, on 30 July 1966.

Range Breeds from northeastern British Columbia, the southeastern Mackenzie Valley, northern Alberta, central Manitoba, northern Ontario, northern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, south to northern New Hampshire, southern Manitoba and central Alberta. Winters in the West Indies.

Remarks Its name is inappropriate, for although the species was first described from a bird collected at Cape May, New Jersey, in May 1811, it seems not to have been recorded there again until September 1920 (Stone 1937).

Although Chapman (1934) and Pough (1949) state, respectively, that the Cape May Warbler lays 3 or 4 eggs, it is now known that larger clutches are laid by this species in response to the rich food supplies available during outbreaks of the spruce budworm.

Field identification is aided by noting its yellow rump, although this mark is obscure on autumn immatures. Only two other warblers known to occur regularly in Nova Scotia—the Magnolia and Yellow-rumped Warblers—have this characteristic; otherwise they are quite different. The Magnolia has conspicuous white patches on its tail which contrasts with a black terminal band, and the Yellow-rumped Warbler's lower breast is white, not yellow.