Cape May Warbler

About the Cape May Warbler

The breeding male Cape May Warbler is tiger-striped below - black streaks raking across yellow underparts - with chestnut cheeks, a yellow neck patch, and a white wing panel. Females and fall birds are grayer, but usually keep a trace of the neck patch and the fine breast streaking.

The Cape May is a spruce-budworm specialist with an unusual field mark you cannot see: a semi-tubular tongue, unique among warblers, that lets it take nectar. On migration and in winter it visits flowering trees and sapsucker wells as readily as it hunts insects.

In Texas it is a scarce migrant, found mainly along the coast in spring, often at flowering trees; it is rare enough inland that any sighting is notable.