Sorry everyone, for the inept cut-and-paste work on my last message. The following is how I meant the text to read. ________________________________ From: bounce-50233039-11143...@list.cornell.edu [bounce-50233039-11143...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Shaibal Mitra [shaibal.mi...@csi.cuny.edu] Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 5:42 PM To: NYSBIRDS-L Subject: RE:[nysbirds-l] Western Palm Warblers
Hey Benjamin, The disparity in spring vs. fall phenology of Western Palm Warbler in NYS is striking--especially so because conspecific Yellow Palms have an almost oppositely disparate schedule! You are probably correct that these taxa don't get the critical attention they deserve, but many of us do our best with them, and here are my own data, for what they are worth. In my banding work at the Fire Island Lighthouse, Suffolk County, LI, in the late 90s, I never captured even one northbound palmarum. Conversely, I captured 38 northbound hypochrysea, on dates ranging from 6 Apr to 10 May, with a median date of 29 Apr. (Note how late this median date for hypochrysea seems today, in 2012, the most remarkably advanced spring migration ever!) During southbound migration, I captured 117 Western Palms on dates ranging from 6 Sep to 24 Nov, with a median date of 26 Sep, compared to 30 Yellow Palms on dates ranging from 16 Sep to 30 Oct, with a median date of 6 Oct. (Note the slightly later migratory occurrence of Yellow Palms during fall, but the counter-intuitive prevalence of Western Palms during winter, described below.) When birding, I generally try to identify to subspecies all the Palm Warblers I see. During April and May in NYS, I've recorded Yellow Palms on 81 occasions, compared to just two for Western Palm (Gardiner County Park, Suffolk County, 2 May 2000; & Clove Lakes Park, Richmond County, 30 Apr 2010). These two spring Western Palms were fully convincing examples; I've seen a few other, somewhat intermediate birds also. Until this year I had never seen any Palm Warbler in NYS during the month of March. This year, it seemed inevitable that I'd connect with either a winter-survivor Western Palm or an early-migrant Yellow Palm during March; it was the latter that broke the drought. During fall (Sep-Nov), I've accumulated 246 records of Western Palm vs. 71 for Yellow Palm; and during winter (Dec-Feb), 11 records of Western Palm vs. just one of Yellow Palm. I wonder whether the Western Palms you've seen in NYS this spring might be in a similar category to the remarkable run of early spring Orange-crowned Warblers we've enjoyed this year--specifically, whether, the uptick in April Records of these birds this year reflects increasing numbers of birds wintering nearby. In the past, New York's very few spring Orange-crowns (and even fewer Western Palms) tended to occur in May. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________ Change is in the Air - Smoking in Designated Areas Only in effect.<http://www.csi.cuny.edu/tobaccofree> Tobacco-Free Campus as of July 1, 2012. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
