Until recently, the role of mitochondria in migration physiology and energetics has been mostly unstudied. The migratory phenotype consists of whole-organism to subcellular adaptations although a paucity of information exists on how organelles within the cell may play a critical role. Our research has focused on two-study comparisons of closely related migrants and non-migrants, in the family Mimidae and genus Zonotrichia. Here, we discuss our mitochondrial respiratory performance results between our study groups by measuring mitochondrial respiration using High-resolution respirometry. Additionally, we discuss other important variables and measurements that were collected that allow us to examine oxygen carrying capacity, fuel usage, and whole-organism performance. Our initial study on migratory and non-migratory, White-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophyrs), demonstrated evidence of seasonal upregulation of mitochondrial performance related to migration. However, our Mimidae results did not. We discuss potential explanations for these patterns and how we are currently working to understand the mechanisms underlying our results. Lastly, we discuss our current work on expanding to other Zonotrichia groups to control for relatedness in our study.