Date: 10/6/25 12:27 pm From: Judy Sinn <junebugg1910...> Subject: Re: Cape May Warblers at the Stone Mt hawk watch
Such beautiful pictures, thanks for sharing them!
On Mon, Oct 6, 2025, 10:11 AM Nick Bolgiano <nickbolgiano...> wrote:
> Several weeks ago, I wrote about an influx of Bay-breasted Warblers. There
> must have been a huge number in our PA forests.
>
> At the Stone Mt hawk watch, there has been an influx of Cape May Warblers,
> another of the spruce budworm warblers. This is the best place that I have
> encountered for seeing Cape May Warblers in the fall and this has been a
> good year for them. I suspect that they are comfortable in that setting.
> One place where they frequent is the American Mountain Ash bush behind the
> platform, where they glean bugs off the berries (you can see that in one
> picture). I sometimes see them in the American Chestnut saplings that grow
> from old rootstocks and then die (the 3 Oct 5 pictures have chestnut leaves
> as backgrounds.) (In contrast, we see relatively few Bay-breasted Warblers
> there, as they prefer a thicker woods.) If there is a warbler flock near
> the platform, Pedro Miranda and I (the Sunday-Tuesday watch team) pish them
> out.
>
> Yellow-rumped Warblers also seem to like the setting at the Stone Mt hawk
> watch. I include one picture from the Mountain Ash of a Yellow rump. Where
> Cape May and Yellow-rumped Warblers breed in the boreal forest of Canada,
> American Mountain Ash is a common bush. In central PA, mountain ash berries
> remain until late in the season, apparently because they are not especially
> delectable. But in the boreal forest, some birds, especially Pine
> Grosbeaks, seek them out.
>
> I have also seen a fair number of Tennessee Warblers this fall, the 3rd of
> the spruce budworm warblers. This seemingly speaks to the effect of the
> ongoing spruce budworm infestation in eastern Quebec. A special aspect of
> the first half of the hawk watch season at Stone Mt is getting there by 900
> and looking for warblers. About half of the Cape May Warblers are bright
> yellow, as in these pictures, and the other half grayish-green (the young
> ones).
>
> Nick Bolgiano
>
