Part 11

TABLE 12. INCIDENCE OF COWBIRD PARASITISM OF THE BELL VIREO COMPARED WITH OTHER PASSERINES IN THE STUDY AREA IN 1959 AND 1960.

========================================================= | Bell | Other | Vireo |passerines --------------------------------------+-------+---------- Total nests examined containing | | at least one host egg | 35 | 43 Total nests parasitized | 24 | 14 Total number of cowbird eggs | 33 | 23 Per cent of nests parasitized | 68.6 | 32.6 Total number of cowbird eggs per nest | .94 | .54 --------------------------------------+-------+----------

The percentage of cowbird eggs hatched in relation to the number laid is relatively low. For instance, Mumford (1952:231) has only one record of a young cowbird successfully raised by a Bell Vireo. The data available in Bent (1950:260-261) also indicate that the percentage of cowbird eggs hatched is small. The Bell Vireo is less tolerant of cowbird parasitism than are many of the species so victimized, but is not so intolerant as the Robin, Catbird, and the Yellow-breasted Chat (Friedmann, 1929:193).

SUMMARY

1. The behavior of a small population of Bell Vireos was studied in the spring and summer of 1959 and again in 1960 in Douglas County, Kansas, and results are compared with previous studies elsewhere.

2. The Bell Vireo sings more often daily and throughout the nesting season than do the majority of its avian nesting associates. Six types of vocalizations are readily distinguishable in the field: primary song, courtship song, distress call, alarm note, specialized male call note or zip, and the generalized call note or chee.

3. Territories are established in early May and occupied throughout the breeding season and post-breeding season. The average size of the territories in 1960 was 1.25 acres. Shifting of territorial boundaries occasionally occurs after nesting attempts.

4. Territory is maintained primarily by song, but at least five aggressive displays are manifest in the early phases of territorial establishment. These include: (a) vocal threat, (b) head-forward threat, (c) wing-flicking and sub-maximal tail-fanning, (d) ruffling and maximum tail-fanning, and (e) supplanting attack.

5. The precise mechanism of pair-formation in the Bell Vireo is not known. Early courtship activities are characteristically violent affairs. Absence of sexual dimorphism suggests that behavioral criteria are used by the birds in sex-recognition; the male is dominant and the female is subordinate.

6. The principal displays associated with courtship include: greeting ceremonies, "pouncing," "leap-flutter," pre- and post-copulatory displays, and the posture, copulation. The marked similarity between elements of courtship display and aggressive display suggests common origin or the derivation of one from the other.

7. The nest-site probably is selected by the female. Nests are suspended from lateral or terminal forks about 2 feet 3 inches high in small trees and shrubs averaging 11 feet 2 inches in height.

8. Nestbuilding is intimately associated with courtship and is a responsibility of both sexes. The male builds the suspension apparatus and the female constructs and lines the bag. Both sexes participate in adorning the exterior. Construction lasts from four and one-half to five days.

9. The nest is compact, pendant, and composed of strips of bark and strands of grasses that are interwoven and tightly bound with animal silk. Nests built in May are bulkier than those constructed later in the season.

10. Egglaying begins on the first or second day after the nest is completed. The eggs are deposited early in the morning. The average clutch-size of the Bell Vireo in Kansas is 3.39 eggs.

11. Both sexes sit on the eggs, but only the female truly incubates because the male lacks a brood patch. Incubation lasts fourteen days.

12. The Bell Vireo is double-brooded in "good" years.

13. Nesting failure resulted from severe weather, predation, parasitism by cowbirds, and human interference. Behavior that contributes to nesting failure is selection of an unfavorable nest-site, singing on and near the nest, and the tendency to flush from the nest in view of potential enemies.

LITERATURE CITED

AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION

1957. Check-list of North American birds. Fifth ed. Baltimore, The Lord Baltimore Press, The American Ornithologists' Union, iv + 691 pp.

ANDREW, R. J.

1956. Intention movements of flight in certain passerines, and their use in systematics. Behaviour, 10:79-204.

BAILEY, R. E.

1952. The incubation patch of passerine birds. Condor, 54:121-136.

BENNETT, W. W.

1917. Bell's Vireo studies (Vireo bellii Aud.). Proc. Iowa Acad. Sci., 24:285-293.

BENT, A. C.

1950. Life histories of North American wagtails, shrikes, vireos and their allies. Smithsonian Inst., U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull., 197:vii + 411 pp., 48 pls.