Comparative Breeding Behavior of Ammospiza caudacuta and A. maritima   By: Glen E. Woolfenden

MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 45 75, 6 pls., 1 fig.

December 20, 1956

Comparative Breeding Behavior of Ammospiza caudacuta and A. maritima

BY

GLEN E. WOOLFENDEN

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE 1956

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, Henry S. Fitch, Harrison B. Tordoff

Volume 10, No. 2, pp. 45 75, 6 pls., 1 fig. Published December 20, 1956

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas

PRINTED BY FERD VOILAND. JR., STATE PRINTER TOPEKA, KANSAS 1956

Comparative Breeding Behavior of Ammospiza caudacuta and A. maritima

BY

GLEN E. WOOLFENDEN

Transcriber's Note: There are three symbols used in the caption for Figure b in Plate 1 which are not available in the Latin 1 character set. They have been noted as follows:

For the black triangle > [triangle]. For the black dot > [dot]. For the five pointed star > [star].

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 48

MATERIALS AND METHODS 48

DESCRIPTION OF THE AREA 49

FLORA 50

REPTILES 50

MAMMALS 50

PREDATORS 50

PASSERINE ASSOCIATES 51

WINTER STATUS AND SPRING MIGRATION 51

TERRITORY 52

VOICE 58 Song 58 Calls 60

COPULATION 61

NESTS 62

EGGS AND INCUBATION 65

YOUNG 65 Growth 65 Behavior 68

FOOD, FEEDING AND CARE OF THE YOUNG 71

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 73

SUMMARY 73

LITERATURE CITED 74

INTRODUCTION

Taxonomically the Genus Ammospiza has received the attention of ornithologists for more than a century. Nevertheless, the behavior of no species of the genus has been studied extensively. The papers of Montagna and Tomkins are the only works that mention behavior and natural history in any detail. There has been an increasing awareness of the importance of ethological data and of their usefulness in systematics. For these reasons, I made a comparative study of the breeding behavior of the Sharp tailed Sparrow ( Ammospiza caudacuta ) and the Seaside Sparrow ( Ammospiza maritima ) in New Jersey in the spring and summer of 1955.

The Seaside Sparrow is restricted to the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of North America, breeding north to Massachusetts. The Sharp tailed Sparrow breeds south to North Carolina. The overlap of the breeding ranges of the two species is therefore small. Furthermore the forms breeding in the coastal states are restricted to tidal marshes, and the geographically peripheral colonies of each species are small. Irregular nesting is the case for the northernmost colonies of the Seaside Sparrow, on Cape Cod (Griscom, 1944:317), and the same is probably true for the colonies of the Sharp tailed Sparrow on Pea Island, North Carolina, as indicated by Montagna's failure to locate any breeding birds in July, 1941 (Montagna, 1942b: 256). The center of overlap of the ranges of the two species is in New Jersey where both forms are abundant and can best be studied comparatively.

MATERIALS AND METHODS