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
Mr. Du Bois has sent me the data for 30 nests of the eastern yellow
warbler found in Minnesota, Illinois, and New York. Among these, 4 were
in willows, 3 each in lilacs and alders, 2 each in elms and boxelder
saplings, and 1 each in a grapevine, an ash sapling, a spirea bush, and
a currant bush. One of these latter, in an unspecified bush, was 14 feet
from the ground, and another, in a wild grapevine climbing on a tree
beside a coalbin, was 8 feet from the ground; those in the elms were 12
and 14 feet, respectively, from the ground. The remainder were mostly 5
feet or less above ground, the lowest being at a height of 2 feet, in a
currant bush near a vegetable garden. He tells of a nest that was built
in a wild rose bush at the edge of a small run near his vegetable
garden; "this nest was so compactly fabricated as to hold water for some
time; I saw about one-fourth inch of water standing in the bottom of it
after a heavy rain."
On two occasions, he has found the new nest to have been built on top of
the old nest of the previous year.
F. G. Schrantz (1943) has published the results of a careful study of 41
nests of the eastern yellow warbler in Iowa, during 1938 and 1939, on
the restricted grounds of the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. Among those at
heights from 1-1/2 to 5 feet from the ground were 27 in wolfberry bushes
(_Symphoricarpos occidentalis_), 8 in young saplings of boxelder (_Acer
negundo_), 2 in wild gooseberry (_Ribes gracile_), 1 in wild currant
(_Ribes floridum_), and 1 in an introduced species of honeysuckle. One
nest was in a cottonwood at a height of about 10 feet, and another in a
boxelder about 15 feet above ground.
Dr. Roberts (1936) says that in the prairie regions of Minnesota, where
underbrush is scarce, the yellow warblers build their nests in the
cottonwoods in the tree-claims, "against the trunks of the large trees,
supporting them on small lateral branches and twigs. * * * These
arboreal nests are often fifteen to twenty-five feet from the ground and
occasionally still higher." And in the huge cottonwood trees along the
river, he has seen nests placed at elevations of 40 to 60 feet. Others
have also recorded nests at heights of 40 and 60 feet.
In Dr. Kendeigh's (1941) prairie community, "twenty out of twenty-nine
nests were placed in buckbrush, with the rest in boxelder, lilac,
willow, or currant. The buckbrush is a low bush usually three or four
feet high, growing in rather dense thickets in the open, especially in
grassy areas of _Poa_ and _Agropyron_. Nests placed here varied between
two and three feet above the ground. The nest found closest to the
ground (18 inches) was, however, in a small boxelder. In taller shrubs
and trees, the nests were found up to about seven feet above the
ground."
Mr. Schrantz (1943) watched the building of a nest from the first stages
of construction to its completion and the laying of the first egg,
covering a period of 4 days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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