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
_Nesting._--All the 14 or more nests that I have seen, in Maine, New
Brunswick, Quebec, and Newfoundland, have been in small spruces or
balsam firs growing in old clearings, in reclaimed boggy pastures, or
along the edges of coniferous woods. These little trees were often less
than 6 feet high and generally stood in dense thickets. The lowest nest
I find recorded in my notes was only 12 inches above the ground in a
tiny fir, and the highest was 8 feet up in a slender balsam in a thick
clump of these trees in rather open woods; more nests were below 5 feet
than above it. The nests usually rested on horizontal branches or twigs
and against the trunk but in a few cases they were placed a few inches
or a foot out on a branch.
Similar nesting habits seem to be characteristic of the magnolia warbler
in other parts of northern New England, Nova Scotia, and southern Canada
according to information received from others; and most of the nests
have been placed at similar low levels, though Mr. Brewster (1938) found
one near Lake Umbagog that was 25 feet from the ground. In this
northeastern region an occasional nest has been found in a cedar, a
larch, or a small hemlock, but at a height usually less than 5 feet.
In New York and Pennsylvania hemlock seems to be the favorite tree, and
the magnolia warbler more often places its nest at a higher level and
well out toward the end of a horizontal branch, where it is usually
shaded and sometimes well concealed in dense foliage. Verdi Burtch, of
Branchport, N. Y., wrote to Dr. Chapman (1907) that he found nests "in
hemlocks usually on a horizontal limb from eight to twenty feet up and
over an opening in the woods. Several nests were found in the top of
little hemlock saplings from one to five feet from the ground. One nest
was found by Mr. C. F. Stone in a birch sapling, this being the only
instance to my knowledge of its nesting in a tree other than a hemlock."
He has sent me a photograph of a nest in a wild blackberry bush.
T. E. McMullen has given me the data for 14 nests of the magnolia
warbler found in the Pocono Mountains, Pa.; 10 of these were located in
hemlocks from 30 inches to 30 feet above the ground and from 6 to 12
feet out on the branches; one nest was 30 feet up and one 18, but the
others were all less than 10 from the ground. The other 4 nests were in
rhododendrons, in woods, or along the banks of creeks, and were from 2
to 3 feet up.
Edward A. Preble (Todd, 1940) says that "all but one of more than fifty
nests of this warbler that R. B. Simpson has examined near Warren [Pa.]
were placed in hemlocks. One nest was at the exceptional height of
thirty-five feet; another was only a foot from the ground in some low
hemlock brush." Mr. Simpson's other nest was in a witch-hazel, and Mr.
Saunders reported one in a pin cherry, both under hemlocks.
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