Some years before Wilson named the Cape May warbler, a specimen of the same bird flew aboard a vessel off the coast of Jamaica and was painted and described by George Edwards. This was the basis of Gmelin’s name tigrina, little tiger. Although not striped exactly like a tiger, it has carried this name ever since.
Spring.—Cape May warblers leave their winter home in the West Indies in March and pass through the Bahamas and Florida in March and April, northward along the Atlantic coast, and branch out westward to southern Missouri and up through the Mississippi Valley to Minnesota and Canada. Very few stop to settle much short of the Canadian border. Dr. Chapman (1907) writes of the spring migration: “In early May in Florida, I have seen this species actually common, feeding in weedy patches among a rank growth of poke-berries. It seemed like wanton extravagance on the part of nature to bring so many of these generally rare creatures within one’s experience in a single morning. Both on the east and west coasts of the State the bird is at times a common migrant, possibly bound for its summer home by way of the Mississippi Valley, where it is more numerous than in the north Atlantic States.”
Amos W. Butler (1898) says:
The Cape May Warbler is generally considered a rare bird everywhere. While this is true, and some years it is altogether absent, there are years when it is common and even abundant. In Indiana it appears as a migrant, perhaps more numerous in fall than spring. * * * Some years with us they are found upon the drier uplands, among the oak woods, where they usually keep among the lower branches or upon the high bushes and smaller trees. They are not very active, but keep persistently hunting insects. At other times, we find them among our orchards, even coming into towns, where they occupy themselves catching insects among the foliage and about the blossoms of all kinds of shade and fruit trees.
In Ohio, according to Milton B. Trautman (1940), “the bird was uncommon in every spring except 1, and seldom more than 10 individuals were noted in a day. Between May 14 and 20, 1926, the species was very numerous throughout central Ohio. On May 16 I noted at least 40 individuals in Lakeside Woods, and it was evident that hundreds were present in the area on that day.” Referring also to Ohio, W. F. Henninger (1918) writes: “This year, on May 25, 1917, we entered a large patch of woods about half a mile from the Grand Reservoir early in the morning, just when the fog had barely raised above the treetops, and the warblers were fairly swarming there, among them numbers of Cape May’s. I counted more than fifty, but got tired counting and then gave it up, after taking a fine pair.” Rev. J. J. Murray (MS.) refers to this warbler as common in the vicinity of Lexington, Va., in the spring from April 29 to May 18, where it seems to prefer conifers at that season.
I have seen the Cape May warbler fairly common in Florida at times and I have collected it there, but I have never seen it in my corner of Massachusetts. Mr. Forbush (1929) tells the story very well for this State:
For nearly one hundred years at least this species had been considered very rare in New England, but about 1909 it seemed to become more common. In May, 1912, at Amesbury, Massachusetts, one chilly morning I found bright males scattered through the village. A cold wave, catching them in night migration, had brought them down, and they could be seen here and there on or near the ground, and in low bushes by the roadside. In the door-yards and along the streets these lovely birds hopped and fluttered fearlessly in their search for food, paying little attention to passers-by. By 1915 they had appeared more generally, and in May, 1917, they were well distributed over a large part of New England. Since that time Cape May Warblers have been not uncommon transients in certain years, and they have never been as rare as they formerly were. In migration they may be found in trees and shrubbery about dwellings and along village streets almost as commonly as in woods or in swampy thickets, where at this season they find many insects. Occasionally a few may be seen in blossoming orchards.
Courtship.—Information on the courtship behavior of the wood warblers is so scanty that it seems worthwhile to include two small items on this subject for the Cape May warbler. While watching a pair at their nest-building, Dr. Merriam (1917) observed that “on June 11 the male was seen to chase the female. The next day nest building was apparently complete. An hour’s watching on the 13th also failed to show any further nest construction, although the female was frequently heard in the low growth. Once she flew ten feet up in a spruce and gave a peculiar note at the same time lifting her tail. Immediately the male flew down and copulation took place. The whole proceeding resembled very much that of the Chipping Sparrow.” James Bond (1937) noted at times that, “when the female was working on the nest, the male would fly with rigid wings just above her. This was a characteristic courting display, noted with other individuals.”
Nesting.—The Cape May warbler seeks for its summer home the country of the pointed firs and spruces that tower like tapering church spires in the Canadian Life Zone of our northern border and in Canada. It seems to prefer an open, parklike stand of these noble trees rather than the denser coniferous forests, though it often finds a congenial home along the borders of the forests or in the more open spaces within them, especially where there is a mixture of tall white or yellow birches, or a few hemlocks. Its breeding range follows the Canadian Zone rather closely, as along the cool coastline of eastern Maine. James Bond writes to me of its interesting distribution in that state: “In the eastern half of the state it is found mainly along the coast, as far south as Hog Island, Knox County. It ranges across Maine through Washington, Aroostook and northern Penobscot Counties, but is a rare species in the interior, and is unknown in summer from the Bangor and Lincoln sections of Penobscot County. I found it most abundant in southern Mount Desert Island in the vicinity of Ship Harbor. Here several pairs nest every year in the cool, often fog-drenched woods, although I have found but one nest.”
The first published report of the nesting of the Cape May warbler was perhaps based on an error in identification. Montague Chamberlain (1885) reported that his friend James W. Banks found a nest apparently “just outside the city limits” of Saint John, New Brunswick; he states that it "was hid among a cluster of low cedars growing in an exposed position, on a rather open hill-side, near a gentleman’s residence, and within a stone’s throw of a much frequented lane. The nest was placed less than three feet from the ground and within six inches of the tips of the branches.” The location of this nest, as will be seen from the accounts that follow, was entirely different from that of the many nests found since; both nest and eggs were said to resemble somewhat those of the magnolia warbler; no male Cape May warbler was seen or heard, and the bird Banks reports having shot from the nest may have been wrongly identified, since the females of the two species are somewhat alike. Referring to this account, James Bond (1937) remarks: “It would be wise to regard the ‘classical’ nest taken near Saint John, New Brunswick, by Banks as that of a Magnolia Warbler, as is indicated not only by its situation but by its construction, for the nest of the Cape May Warbler is a decidedly more bulky affair. I mention this since recent books still perpetuate this undoubted error, ignoring the information that has been gleaned during the past twenty years.”