The Cape May warbler (''Setophaga tigrina'') is a species of

New World warbler The New World warblers or wood-warblers are a group of small, often colorful, passerine birds that make up the family Parulidae and are restricted to the New World. They are not closely related to Old World warblers or Australian warblers. Mos ...

. It breeds in northern North America. Its breeding range spans all but the westernmost parts of southern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...

region, and

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

. It is migratory, wintering in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

. This species is a very rare vagrant to western

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, with two records in Britain as of October 2013. The English name refers to

Cape May Cape May consists of a peninsula and barrier island system in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is roughly coterminous with Cape May County and runs southwards from the New Jersey mainland, separating Delaware Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The so ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, where

George Ord George Ord, Jr. (March 4, 1781 – January 24, 1866) was an American zoologist who specialized in North American ornithology and mammalogy. Based in part on specimens collected by Lewis and Clark in the North American interior, Ord's article "Zool ...

collected the specimen later described by Alexander Wilson. This species was not recorded again in Cape May for another 100 years, although it is now known as an uncommon migrant there.

Etymology

The genus name ''Setophaga'' is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''ses'', "moth," and ', "eating", and the specific ''tigrina'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "tiger-striped" from ''tigris'', "tiger".

Description

This bird is a small

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by th ...

and is a mid-sized New World warbler. Length can vary from , wingspan is , and body mass can range from . Among standard measurements, the wing chord is , the

tail The tail is the section at the rear end of certain kinds of animals’ bodies; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammal ...

is , the

bill Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Plac ...

is and the tarsus is . The adult male Cape May warbler has a brown back, yellowish rump and dark brown crown. The underparts are yellow streaked with black, giving rise to the bird's scientific name. The throat and nape are bright yellow and the face has a striking chestnut patch framed in yellow with a black eyestripe. There is a narrow white wing bar. Plumages of the female and immature male resemble washed-out versions of the adult male, lacking the strong head pattern. The yellowish rump, and at least indications of the white wing bar, are always present.

Biology

This species is insectivorous and lays larger clutches in years when

spruce budworm ''Choristoneura'' is a genus of moths in the family Tortricidae. Several species are serious pests of conifers, such as spruce and are known as spruce budworms. Species *'' Choristoneura adumbratanus'' (Walsingham, 1900) *'' Choristoneura afri ...

is abundant. It picks insects from the tips of conifer branches or flies out to catch insects. The Cape May warbler also feeds on berry juice and nectar in winter, and has, uniquely for a warbler, a tubular tongue to facilitate this behavior. The breeding habitat of this bird is the edges of coniferous woodland. Cape May warblers nest in dense foliage near the trunk of the tree, commonly the black spruce, and lay 4–9 eggs in a cup nest. This species can lay the largest clutch of any

, probably in response to increases in the numbers of spruce budworm during outbreaks. The song of the Cape May warbler is a simple repetition of high ''tsi'' notes. The call is a thin ''sip''. This bird usually sings from high perches.

References

External links

Cape May warbler – ''Dendroica tigrina''
– USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter

– Cornell Lab of Ornithology * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q27075908 Cape May warbler Birds of Canada Birds of the Dominican Republic Cape May warbler Taxa named by Johann Friedrich Gmelin Birds of the United States