Mr. Wood,

You might want to check your ID on this one again. Connecticut Warblers migrate out of the US in winter to mainly the Amazon River region of South America. However, the winter range is not completely known. These birds are exceptionally uncommon during normal migration in Maryland later in the spring, as most of individuals migrate northward west of the Appalachians. They become somewhat easier in fall as they move down the east side of the mountains. To my knowledge, there are NO records for this species in winter for the region, certainly not for the state. I'd be surprised if there were any North American records, for that matter, but this I cannot provide any documentation to back up. 

An article in The Auk, Oct 2001 by Philip C Stouffer states the following.

For several species, the winter range remains highly speculative. The Connecticut Warbler (Oporornis agilis) could be among the biggest mysteries. Its winter range, based on "a few documented records" (American Ornithologists' Union 1998), encompasses some 9,000,000 km2 (Ridgely and Tudor 1989). Sick (1993), however, mentions records from the central Amazon in April and November, but from farther south in Mato Grosso in December and January. The best summary of available data is in the BNA account (Pitochelli et al. 1997). They list records by location and date, based in large part on Paynter (1995). From those records, it appears that birds do winter in both Venezuela and southern Brazil, but that none have been recorded in the intervening 2000 km of Amazonia. Should that hold up, it would be a very unusual distribution. 

Another very informative publication on this species is available online by the US Department of Agriculture at this link:

http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/wildlife/tes/ca-overview/docs/Connecticut-Warbler-CA.pdf

The article mentions (page 10) that Maryland's late fall date for the species is October 21st, with average springtime arrival dates in Florida somewhere around May 1st. The last reference date that I could gleen from the paper is 2001, but I could not find the date of publication. I don't have my 'Yellow Book' with me (Birds of Maryland) but I suspect that the late date is still the same for this state. 

For more information, the above link will provide you with more information then you probably ever want to know about Connecticut Warbler.

I hope that this helps. 

Edward Boyd
Westminster, MD
edboyd59 AT adelphia DOT net

> > In a message dated 3/9/2006 8:10:14 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> >  writes:
> >
> > and a  possible (?) Connecticut Warbler (if it wasn't a Connecticut, I 
> > don't know  what else it could be, and I know that there are going to be 
> > doubters out  there.)