Because the relative threats to survival during each stage of the life cycle remain uncertain, understanding all aspects of the full annual cycle has become a priority for bird conservation. The time between the end of breeding and the onset of fall migration is poorly known in most neotropical migrants and may be fraught with peril as birds move away from accustomed breeding areas to find food sufficient to prepare for migration. Therefore, we explored the use by post-breeding adult Swainson’s Thrushes (Catharus ustulatus) of two bird-banding stations in southwestern Oregon over a combined total of 31 years. Though the stations are within the species’ breeding range it nests at neither. Of 547 nonbreeding adults captured, 15.5% (85) were molting flight feathers during at least one capture. On average, these molters arrived and left earlier (2 August–29 September) and stayed longer (18.5 days) than nonmolters (30 August–21 October; 7 days). Molters’ probability of being recaptured at the same site in subsequent years was higher. The estimated fidelity of molters was 0.35; that of nonmolters was 0.15. We infer that both categories represent short-distance movements of birds nesting nearby.