Figure 423. Red-faced Warblers most often stray to California in late spring and early summer, with a peak between late May and late June. Ten of the 12 spring records are from inland areas, whereas both fall vagrants were found along the coast. See also Appendix H.

 

 

 

 

 

RED-FACED WARBLER Cardellina rubrifrons (Giraud, 1841)

Accepted: 14 (70%)	Treated in Appendix H: yes
Not accepted: 6	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 0	Color images: pages 266, H-27

This warbler of montane forests breeds from northwestern Arizona and central New Mexico south through the highlands of western and central Mexico (Sonora and Durango). After breeding, all but the southernmost birds withdraw to winter locally in Middle American highlands south to El Salvador. The breeding range has been expanding slowly northward since the mid 1930s, and for several decades has edged as close to California as the Hualapai Mts. of northwestern Arizona (Corman and Wise-Gervais 2005). This warbler is a very rare visitor in late summer/early fall to western Texas (Lockwood and Freeman 2004) and occurs casually or accidentally elsewhere in North America, mainly in spring and summer. Extralimital records extend to southern Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, central and southern Texas, and Louisiana.

A female Red-faced Warbler collected on 30 May 1970 at the Brock Research Center in Imperial County was California’s first (McCaskie 1970f). Spring and early summer vagrants (13 May–3 July, peaking late May to mid June) account for 12 of the 14 accepted individuals (Figure 423). Five of these birds were found in montane oak-conifer forests (i.e., potentially suitable breeding habitat), including the enticing record of two individuals together from 17 June to 3 July 1978 at Charlton Flat, located in the San Gabriel Mts. of Los Angeles County. The two fall records come from early in the season: 11–12 September 1982 at Pt. Loma, San Diego County, and a first-year bird captured on 25 August 1992 at Southeast Farallon Island (Figure 290)—the state’s northernmost occurrence. Appendix H reports on a 2005 influx that generated four more fall records.

Identifying Red-faced Warblers may be simple but, as reviewed by Pyle (1997b) and Dunn and Garrett (1997), determining their age and sex in the field often is not.