Hello everyone:

For the past few years I have been noticing (at least locally) that the
audubon race of Yellow-rumped Warbler has been arriving at least one week
prior to the spring arrival of the myrtle race. I wonder if others have
noticed a similar trend or whether this is unusual?

As far as wintering birds are concerned, thus far we do not have any records
of overwintering audubon and myrtles rarely overwinter in large numbers.
For this reason it is quite easy to detect the first spring arrivals. I
would imagine this may be a bit more of a challenge for those of you that
live farther south where more significant numbers of myrtles overwinter.

Tentatively then, the bit of data that I have locally also suggests that the
audubon race outnumbers the myrtle race at the beginning of the northbound
migration but later the myrtle race takes over and in total number of
migrants that pass through here, probably outnumbers the audubon.

Anyone have any comments?
cheers,

Don Cecile
dcecile at cln.etc.bc.ca