Life histories of North American wood warblers, Part 1 (of 2)Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American wood warblers, Part 1 (of 2)
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- North America; Passeriformes; Wood warblers
_Eggs._--[AUTHOR'S NOTE: The black-and-white warbler usually lays 4 or 5
eggs to a set, normally 5, seldom fewer or more. These are ovate to
short ovate and slightly glossy. The ground color is white or creamy
white. Some are finely sprinkled over the entire surface with
"cinnamon-brown," "Mars brown," and "dark purplish drab"; others are
boldly spotted and blotched with "russet" and "Vandyke brown," with
underlying spots of "brownish drab," "light brownish drab," and "light
vinaceous-drab." Speckled eggs are commoner than the more boldly
blotched type. The markings are usually concentrated at the large end,
and on some of the heavily spotted eggs there is a solid wreath of
different shades of russet and drab. The measurements of 50 eggs average
17.2 by 13.3 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure
=18.8= by 13.7, 17.9 by =14.7=, =15.7= by 12.7, and 16.3 by =12.2=
millimeters (Harris).]
_Young._--Cordelia J. Stanwood (MS.) speaks of the nestlings a few days
from the egg as "very dark gray, much like young juncos and Nashville
warblers." But when they leave the nest they are clearly recognizable as
young black-and-white warblers, although they are slightly tinged with
brownish. By mid-July, here in New England, they assume their first
winter plumage, and, as both sexes of the young birds have whitish
cheeks, they resemble very closely their female parent.
Unlike the young of some of the other warblers which remain near the
ground for many days, the young black-and-white warblers shortly ascend
to the branches of trees where they are fed by the old birds.
I find no definite record of the length of the incubation period, but in
a nest I watched in 1914 it was close to 10 days. Burns (1921) gives the
period of nestling life as 8 to 12 days.
_Plumages._--[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Dr. Dwight (1900) calls the natal down
mouse gray, and describes the juvenal plumage as follows: "Above,
wood-brown streaked with dull olive-brown, the upper tail coverts dusky;
median crown and superciliary stripe dingy white. Wings and tail dull
black, edged chiefly with ashy gray, the tertiaries (except the proximal
which is entirely black) broadly edged with white, buff tinged on the
middle one. Two buffy white wing bands at tips of greater and median
wing coverts. The outer two rectrices with terminal white blotches of
variable extent on the inner webs. Below, dull white, washed on the
throat and sides with wood-brown, obscurely streaked on throat, breast,
sides and crissum with dull grayish black."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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