Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Incidence of nest material kleptoparasitism invlovling cerulean warblers

Informally Refereed

Abstract

document 21 observations of interspecific stealing of nesting material involving Cerulean Warblers (Dendroica cerulea), Red-eyed Vireos (Vireo olivaceus/i>), Blue-gray Gnatcatchers (Polioptila caerulea/i>), Northern Parulas (Parula americana/i>), Black-throated Green Warblers (D. virens), American Redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla/i>), and Orchard Orioles (Zcterus spurius/i>) that occurred during studies of Cerulean Warbler breeding biology. These incidents involved a variety of combinations of nest owner and nest material thief suggesting that each of these species is both a perpetrator and recipient of this behavior in our study areas. Kleptoparasitic incidents occurred at all stages of the nesting cycle from nest-building through post-fledging. Two possible motivations for this behavior are related to saving time in finding nest materials and collecting this material for nest construction.

Citation

Jones, Kelly C.; Roth, Kirk L.; Islam, Kamal; Hamel, Paul B.; Smith, Carl G. III. 2007. Incidence of nest material kleptoparasitism invlovling cerulean warblers. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, Vol. 119(2): 271-275
Citations
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/28921