colorful misnomers

Both yesterday and this morning were overcast, cool and a bit windy, conditions that did not encourage migration, arriving or departing. Most of the warblers I have been seeing are still with us: Cape May, Prairie, Yellow, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Waterthrush. I saw at least three different plumages of Cape May representing (I think) male and female adults and young of the year. The male was still in his handsome breeding plumage with a yellow neck, throat and breast, heavy breast streaking, a white wing patch and a red or chestnut ear patch. Notice how misnamed many of these colorful bird-watcher specialties actually are. In fact the whole family is misnamed -- a confusion with the unrelated Eurasian warblers (which do indeed warble but are, by and large, not so pretty). Our warblers -- better looking but not so musically inclined -- are restricted to the Americas and are often called Wood Warblers to emphasize the difference. As I mentioned yesterday, the Cape May was named for a bird found at that location in the early 19th century and then not seen there for another 100 years (it breeds in southern Canada and adjacent areas of the US including parts of New England and winters in the West Indies). Prairie Warblers don't inhabit prairies but like low brushy areas. The waterthrushes are not thrushes but warblers that look only vaguely like thrushes. Probably the most egregious misnomers are the Palm Warbler and the Magnolia Warbler, both of which breed in Canadian boreal forests (the Palm in northern bogs, the Magnolia in forest trees) and both winter just south of the US (the Palm in the Caribbean, the Magnolia in Central America and parts of the Caribbean). Eric Salzman