The Howland Picture Pages: Cape May Warbler

Page by Royce
Last update: $Date: 2004/10/23 17:21:14 $ (UTC)

The Cape May Warbler (Dendroica tigrina) is one of the more distinctively colored Wood-Warblers, and an elusive one in our home area of Calgary. The Cape May Warbler spends the summer in the northern part of Alberta, the Northwest Territories, and much of the rest of Canada to the east. Typically we see them in Calgary only rarely, during migration. According to most of the guides I have, this species is not well understood.

Its summer diet is fairly specialized, being highly preferential to spruce budworms. This leads to a risk factor -- availability of the budworms may be impacted by use of insecticides and also by logging (especially in Western Canada). In wintering grounds, these warblers apply a semitubular tongue (unique among warblers) to collect nectar from flowering plants.

Visual identifying characteristics to look for include chestnut cheeks (for males in breeding colors), yellow patch on the neck, and extensive dark streaking on the sides and below the throat area.

Resources where you can find out more:

• Cape May Warbler profile at weaselhead.org
• Cape May Warbler profile at CLO including sound sample
• Cape May Warbler profile at the USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter

This Cape May Warbler was seen first thing in the morning on October 13, 2004 when conditions were overcast and a little breezy. The location was the same back yard where I was staked out for a Hooded Warbler, with Terry Korolyk. The yellow neck patch, dark streaking and large white wing patch all can be clearly seen. I was scratching my head a bit while trying to get the shot because this bird was mixed in with one Blackburnian Warbler (ID'ed by Terry) and one or two Orange-crowned Warblers. The photographs I got of the bush in which these birds were milling around all turned out to be of the Cape May. As it turned out we did see the Hooded Warbler a bit later, and also some Yellow-rumped Warblers later in the day, making for a 5-warbler day in this yard location. This photo was taken two back yards over from my vantage point, using a hand-held Canon EOS 10D + EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens. Unfortunately I didn't have my digiscoping rig with me at the time. EXIF 2.2 photo info:   320 x 359 true color Shutter speed: 1/200.00 F-stop: 8.0 ISO speed: 400 Focal length: 400.0000 Exposure mode: Auto White balance: Auto Exposure bias: 0.0000 Canon focus mode: One-shot Canon contrast: Normal Canon saturation: 2 Canon sharpness: 2 Canon metering mode: Partial Canon exposure mode: Av-priority Camera make: Canon Camera model: Canon EOS 10D

Here is another view of the same Cape May Warbler shown in the previous photo. EXIF 2.2 photo info:   320 x 315 true color Shutter speed: 1/200.00 F-stop: 8.0 ISO speed: 400 Focal length: 400.0000 Exposure mode: Auto White balance: Auto Exposure bias: 0.0000 Canon focus mode: One-shot Canon contrast: Normal Canon saturation: 2 Canon sharpness: 2 Canon metering mode: Partial Canon exposure mode: Av-priority Camera make: Canon Camera model: Canon EOS 10D

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