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
One nest was "4 feet above the ground in a mountain lilac (_Ceanothus
integerrimus_)," and another "was placed about 15 feet above the ground
in a small pine tree growing at the margin of a pond. It rested on the
next to the topmost whorl of branches and one side was against the
slender trunk of the tree."
In the Lassen Peak region, Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) report
four nests in willows, one in a wax-berry (_Symphoricarpos_), one in a
snowbush, and one fastened between stems of rose and willow at the edge
of a clump of rose.
_Eggs._--Three or four eggs seem to constitute the commonest set for the
California yellow warbler. These are hardly distinguishable from those
of the eastern bird, though they average, perhaps, more heavily marked.
The measurements of 40 eggs average 16.6 by 12.4 millimeters; the eggs
showing the four extremes measure =18.3= by 13.5, 17.8 by =15.0=, =14.7=
by 12.2, and 16.3 by =11.4= (Harris).
_Food._--Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1907) analyzed the contents of 98 stomachs
of California yellow warblers, and found that the animal matter amounts
to 97 percent of the food, consisting wholly of insects and a few
spiders.
The largest item is Hymenoptera, which amounts to over 30 percent,
almost half of which are ants. The remainder are small bees and wasps,
some of which are probably parasitic species, though none were
positively identified. * * * Caterpillars, with a few moths, aggregate
over 18 percent.
Beetles form nearly 16 percent of the diet, and embrace about a dozen
families, of which the only useful one is that of the ladybirds
(_Coccinellidae_), which are eaten to a small extent. The great bulk of
the beetle food consists of small leaf-beetles (_Chrysomelidae_), with
some weevils and several others. One stomach contained the remains of 52
specimens of _Notoxus alamedae_, a small beetle living on trees. Bugs
(Hemiptera) constitute over 19 percent of the food, and are eaten
regularly every month. Most of them consist of leaf-hoppers (Jassidae)
and other active forms, but the black olive scale appeared in a number
of stomachs. Plant-lice were not positively identified, but some
stomachs contained a pasty mass, which was probably made up of these
insects in an advanced stage of digestion.
Flies seem to be acceptable to the summer warbler; they are eaten to the
extent of nearly 9 percent. Some of them are of the family of the house
fly, others are long-legged tipulids, but the greater number were the
smaller species commonly known as gnats. A few small soft-bodied
Orthoptera (tree-crickets), a dragon-fly, and a few remains not
identified, in all about 5 percent, made up the rest of the animal food.
Only about 2-1/2 percent of the food was vegetable matter, made up
mainly of fruit pulp in a single stomach, one or two seeds and rubbish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account