Connecticut Warbler (Oporornis agilis)

County List:

Rule:

Forested or Mixed Forested/Nonforested Landscapes

      Bog
      or Treed Bog

Habitat List:

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Literature:

Habitat: For such an uncommon and local species, the Connecticut Warbler breeds in a surprisingly wide variety of Michigan habitats, including the following types of forest: dry deciduous (aspen, often with white birch and bracken fern); dry coniferous (jack pine, with scattered aspen); mesic mixed (mature aspen, with spruce and some eastern white pine and balsam fir); and wet coniferous (spruce and/or tamarack bogs, with sphagnum moss, Labrador tea, and some aspen). The forest is usually open, sometimes park-like, and there are dense shrub and herb layers in which to hide the ground nest. Soil wetness and tree species seem unimportant, although aspen is often a conspicuous element, and most breeding records are from wetland edge. Connecticuts may occur side-by-side with Mourning Warblers in mesic mixed forest.

Habitat: Popular bluffs, muskeg, mixed woods near water; in migration, undergrowth. In breeding season, in United States and eastern Canada, prefers bogs with black spruce or tamarack. In western Canada, nests on dry ridges and in open poplar or aspen stands. In migration, found in undergrowth of lowland woods or in dense thickets in meadows.

Diet: Mostly insects. Details of diet not well studied. Undoubtedly feeds mostly on insects, like other warblers. Reported to feed its young on green caterpillars, also seen eating spiders, snails; may sometimes eat seeds and raspberries.

Nest: Hidden in sphagnum moss hummock. In poplar woods, placed next to clump of dry grass or weeds. Nest is an open cup constructed of leaves, grass, and bark strips, or sometimes a simple hollow in moss lined with finer stems of grass.