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
Perhaps half a mile from the northeast end of Sullivan Island the belt
of waxmyrtle trees narrows to a width, measured northwest and southeast,
of about three hundred feet. Here, near a seashore resort, a road had
been recently cut across the belt of waxmyrtle trees at right angles to
the sand bar. Streams of warblers flying along the shore northeasterly
from Folly and Morris Islands, just south of the entrance to Charleston
harbor, dropped to the land and converged at the southwest end of the
mantle of myrtle trees and passed across the open swath cut for the new
road. Posting ourselves here we counted the birds moving northeast,
minute by minute as they passed the opening, for half an hour. The
flight was continuous, many of the birds lighting on the ground and
trees from time to time, and the number crossing per minute varied from
twenty to two hundred, and accordingly averaged about one hundred per
minute. As far as we could judge the number was no greater than it had
been all the time since our arrival at the shore. Taking, therefore, the
average at one hundred per minute, 24,000 Myrtle Warblers passed
northward between nine in the morning and one in the afternoon. Not only
so, but additional warblers passed close by both to the east and to the
west of the stream of birds under observation. No doubt also the
migration began prior to nine in the morning and did not cease at one in
the afternoon.
He points out that the northern species of myrtle, or bayberry (_Myrica
pensylvanica_), extends all along the coast from New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia to Florida; and he suggests that if these warblers prefer to
migrate along a coastal route where these myrtles reach their maximum
development and where the climate may be milder than at higher
elevations inland, it may explain why they generally arrive in New
Brunswick a week earlier than in Pennsylvania.
Milton P. Skinner (1928) says that, in the North Carolina sandhills,
"early in March the movement becomes conspicuous, and great numbers of
these warblers are then seen constantly moving through the forests and
across the fields in steady streams, flitting about a few minutes, and
then passing on to the northeast. These movements are near the ground,
or among the tree trunks, but at other times the birds are above the
tallest trees. The general direction is from the southwest to the
northeast, with fifty to a hundred warblers passing over a field each
hour of every day for at least two weeks."
At Buckeye Lake, Ohio, according to Milton B. Trautman (1940)--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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