Migration slowed down to a trickle after an auspicious first week of banding. We banded or recaptured only 0 to 6 birds a day almost every day for the last two weeks. Some were migrants, but many were the birds still hanging around Cape Florida prior to starting their trip north. Gray Catbirds and Ovenbirds make up most of these birds, and they will be gone by the end of April. Still, now they remain and this week many of the catbirds were starting to sing a lot.
The two Magnolia Warblers that are spending the winter at Cape Florida are also still here, but the one we recaptured yesterday is starting to molt into its spring plumage.
Magnolia Warbler on March 19 (photo by Miriam Avello)
This is what the Maggie looked like in March; still in the fall and winter plumage. This bird is a second-year, meaning it hatched last summer. It can be hard to distinguish male from female at this stage, so we considered this bird unknown sex.
Magnolia Warbler on April 10 (photo by Michelle Davis)
Here is the same bird recaptured yesterday. Note the mask and the white around the eyes, and the black collar starting to form. The scruffy appearance of this bird is due to the heavy molt of the body feathers prior to spring migration. The larger wing and tail feathers will remain until the end of summer, when most songbirds undergo a complete molt of all feathers. This spring body feather molt is how birds such as Indigo Buntings, Scarlet Tanagers and Blackpoll Warblers change into completely different colors for breeding. Other species that look similar year-round also go through this molt, but it is not so obvious. The contrast between the new and old feathers is more extreme for birds hatched the year before (called second-year by banders) than for adult birds and is the main way we can tell the age in spring.
The photo below is of a Magnolia Warbler banded last spring who is most of the way through his spring molt. That bird is a male. I am not entirely sure of the sex of our wintering bird yet, but there are some indications that she is a female and will molt into a slightly subdued version of the male.
Magnolia Warbler on April 26, 2022 (Photo by Michelle Davis)
After a very dry winter, some rain moved into the area last weekend along with a dissipating frontal boundary. The persistent south or southeast winds switched abruptly to the north during the afternoon of April 9, and many birds landed at Cape Florida later that day and overnight. We banded 59 birds on April 10, including 40 Prairie Warblers! The first few Black-throated Blue Warblers and American Redstarts of the season were mixed in, making for an exciting and busy morning of banding before we had to close because of more rain.
Male Prairie Warbler (photo by Steffanie Munguía)
