North American Bird Bander Apr-Jun 2015 Vol. 40 No. 2

Feature Articles

Stopover Site Fidelity of Nearctic-Neotropical Migrants to a High-elevation Banding Station Evidenced Through Bird Banding.

Craig Marshall, David Vogt, Scott Somershoe, Eric Soehren and Scott Rush

Abstract- We examined stopover site fidelity exhibited by Tennessee Warblers (Oreothlypis peregrina) and Cape May Warblers (Setophaga tigrina) to a high-elevation banding site in the southern Appalachian Mountains.  From 1999-2014, 6,175 Tennessee Warblers and 198 Cape May Warblers were captured and banded at Whigg Meadow banding station (Monroe County, Tennessee), with 16 Tennessee Warblers and one Cape May Warbler recaptured in subsequent years.  The inter-annual recapture, or the recapture of birds banded in prior years, of 16 Tennessee Warblers documents the highest known incidence of fidelity to a single stopover site in a Nearctic-Neotropical migrant passerine species.  These results indicate that fidelity to stopover sites by long-distance migrant passerine species occurs, but may be limited to a specific suite of species.  We encourage continued reporting of inter-annual site faithful passerines and research regarding stopover site fidelity and the ecology of stopover sites in order to aid in the conservation efforts of long-distance migrant passerines.

 

Separation of Male and Female Orange-crowned Warblers by Crown Patch and Wing Chord

William M. Gilbert, George C. West

Abstract- Here we used cap grades and wing chord measurements of museum specimens and netted birds to create a series of scatter diagrams that should aid in the field separation of the sexes of Orange-crowned Warblers (Oreothlypis celata). Many of these scatter diagrams are directly applicable to sexing “AHY/ASY” individuals (“adults”) in the spring and early summer.  We determined some “approximate adjustment factors” (AAFs) that account for wing tip wear which occurs between fall and spring, or wing chord differences among sex/age groups.  We applied these AAFs to our adult/spring scatter diagrams to develop graphs that should aid in sexing adults in the fall, and subadults at any season.