Underside predominately yellow with distinctive dark streaking. A spruce budworm specialist that breeds in the northern boreal forest across much of Canada, the northern Great Lakes, and northern New England. Winters in the Bahamas and the Greater Antilles, and rarely in south Florida. The Cape May Warbler migrates through Florida the first birds appearing in late March. They arrive in the Great Lakes states in mid-May.
Populations fluctuate with abundance of spruce budworms, but overall appear stable.