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
He gives an interesting account of his attempts to locate another nest
in "a short-leaf pine whose branches were weighted down with masses of
twigs and cones." He worked from ten in the morning until three in the
afternoon, following the birds about, climbing the suspected tree
several times and cutting off many twigs, before he finally found the
nest. "The tree was not a very large one and I had shaken every branch
and jarred them with my foot, but until I practically toucht the nest
she had stayed on."
While I was in Arizona with Willard he collected for me on May 30 a
beautiful nest of the olive warbler, with four fresh eggs. It was taken
at an altitude of 8,500 feet on the Huachuca Mountains and was built in
a clump of mistletoe near the tip of a branch of a sugar pine about 20
feet out from the trunk and 55 feet from the ground. Its construction
was similar to those described previously (pl. 23). The loftiest nest
that he ever found was 70 feet from the ground in a pine.
The nest built by the Arizona olive warbler is beautiful, and quite
different from that of any other species of its group. A typical nest
(in the Thayer collection in Cambridge) is made mainly of a brown lichen
or moss mixed with other lichens and mosses, bud scales, flower scales,
and some plant down, reinforced with fine yellowish rootlets. All these
are compactly worked into and supported by the living needles of the
yellow pine in which the nest was built. The lining consists of plant
down and finer strands of the same yellowish rootlets. It measures 3-1/2
by 3 inches in outside diameter and 2-1/2 in height; the inner cavity is
about 2 inches in diameter and 1-1/4 inches in depth.
_Eggs._--Three or four distinctive eggs seem to constitute the full set
for the northern olive warbler. These are ovate to short ovate and have
a very slight lustre. They are grayish or bluish white, or even very
pale blue, liberally speckled, spotted and blotched with "dark
olive-gray," "dark grayish olive," "drab," "olive-brown," or "dark
brownish drab." These are interspersed with undertones of "mouse gray,"
"deep mouse gray," or "Quaker drab." On some eggs the spots are sharp
and distinct, while on others the olive, brown, and drab markings are
clouded into the undertones. The spottings are usually well scattered
over the entire surface, but tend to become heavier at the large end.
The measurements of 28 eggs average 17.1 by 12.8 millimeters; the eggs
showing the four extremes measure =19.0= by =16.0=, =16.0= by 12.2, and
18.1 by =12.0= millimeters (Harris).
_Young._--Information is lacking on incubation and care of the young.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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