Yellow Warbler

Dendroica petechia
STANFORD LOCATIONS:

Uncommon migrant in various habitat types throughout campus. Breeds in the Stanford vicinity, but no suitable breeding habitat (riparian vegetation dominated by cottonwoods, willows, and alders) is present on main campus. The inset shows a female.
  
Nest
Location
Nest
Type
Eggs
Mating System
Dev.
Parental Care
Primary &
2ndary Diet
Foraging
Strategy
F
I: 11-12 DAYS
ALTRICIAL
TREE
1 foot - 14 feet
(To 60 feet)
F
4-5
(3-6)
MONOG
F: 9-12 DAYS
MF
BARK GLEAN
HAWKS
HOVER &
GLEAN
BREEDING: Habitat generalist in e: well-watered second-growth woodland, gardens, scrub; in w, riparian thickets. ? broods.
DISPLAYS: Courtship: male persistently pursues female for 1-4 days.
NEST: Usu compact, neat, strong, of weed stalks, shredded bark, grass, lined with fine materials.
EGGS: Off-white, occ pale green, marked with browns, olive, gray, from barely spotted to strongly blotched, usu wreathed. 0.7" (16 mm).
DIET: Also few berries.
CONSERVATION: Winters s to Bahamas, n Mexico, s to Peru, Bolivia, and Brazilian Amazon. Blue List 1973-82; Special Concern 1986. Populations in w increase where reduction of grazing and cessation of herbiciding willows has led to regrowth of riparian veg. One of the 3 most frequent cowbird hosts; often destroys cowbird egg by burying in bottom of nest where egg cools and dies.
NOTES: Occ polygynous. Males forage higher in trees than females, and in trees with less dense foliage than those used by females; presumably this enables male to more efficiently advertise his territorial ownership while foraging, and minimizes conspicuousness of female. Females occ steal nesting material from each other. Quite tame garden bird in e.
ESSAYS: Head Scratching; Determining Diets; Cowbirds; Blue List; Polygyny.
REFERENCES: Biermann and Sealy, 1982; Busby and Sealy, 1979; DellaSala, 1986; Taylor and Littlefield, 1986.

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Except for Stanford Locations, the material in this species treatment is taken, with permission, from The Birder's Handbook (Paul Ehrlich, David Dobkin, & Darryl Wheye, Simon & Schuster, NY. 1988).