• A second year male American Redstart (with its characteristic orange-yellow side spots and black flecking on its head)

• An adult (ASY) female Baltimore Oriole

Thirty years ago, the nearby towns of Ligonier and Somerset had their thriving colonies of Purple Martins decimated by protracted June rains accompanying Hurricane Agnes.  Today, a lone female PUMA stopped by briefly on the martin house near our banding lab (which, oddly enough, has never succeeded in getting more than a passing glance from a PUMA).  It made a few passes over our ponds and then lit briefly on a nearby fence rail, looking visibly weakened.  It wasn't caught in our nets (this is one species that has never been banded at Powdermill), but it allowed fairly close approach for the photo below.  Shortly therafter, it disappeared from the area.  The forecast is for another very cold night tonight, but overnight lows and daytime highs are predicted to increase steadily through next week, in time, we hope, for nesting and migrating swallows to recover their strength.

We banded our second Worm-eating and Western Palm warblers of the season--the former is very uncommon here at any season, while the latter is irregularly common in fall but very uncommon to band in spring (max. spring banding total is just 4 in 1969).  Today's WPWA provided the latest banding date ever (by one day) for the species at Powdermill.

As discussed last week  with regard to Magnolia Warbler, there is considerable variation in the extent of prealternate body and wing molt in many wood warblers, and this can increase the degree of difficulty in determining sex in some of these species (i.e., a male that has undergone comparatively little prealternate molt can resemble a female that has had a particularly extensive prealternate molt).  In fact, as we said, it is not all that unusual to encounter spring migrants that apparently have failed to undergo any appreciable prealternate molt.  Well, the WPWA banded today provided a case in point.  Save, perhaps, for a few feathers on its head and breast, the body and wing plumage of this SY bird of unknown sex was composed of extremely worn first basic and retained juvenal plumage.  It hardly had the expected look of a spring migrant in fresh "nuptial" plumage!

Female TEWAs (top photo below), which are yellower below and have a reduced gray cap and eye line compared to males, can resemble OCWAs (middle photo below), but TEWAs lack the blurry gray breast streaking and yellowish "face" evident on even the dullest OCWAs (bottom photo below--OCWA, left; TEWA, right).