INDIGO BUNTING 83 



Stewart and Robbins apple orchard 13 pairs/25 acres 



(1958) dense second growth 4 pairs/21 acres 



shrubby field 3 pairs/19.5 acres 



field and edge habitat 9 pairs/66 acres 



dry deciduous scrub 1.5 pairs/26 acres 



Nesting. — The extensive breeding range through the many habitats 

 noted above entails a correspondingly wide choice of nest sites. 

 William Brewster (1906) points out that the species may nest "in 

 raspberry or blackberry bushes near farmhouses; in barberry or hazel 

 thickets about the edges of remote fields and pastures; and in young 

 sprout growths on the borders of woodland." Trautman (1940) 

 specifies the brushy edges in the openings of a swamp forest. The 

 territory he studied was a buttonbush community. 



C. R. Stockard (1905) describes nests in Mississippi as being not 

 only in low bushes and blackberry vines near the edges of fields, but 

 also in dense cane thickets, in which the foundation of the nest was 

 made entirely of cane leaves. The nest was only a few feet from the 

 ground. In Alabama, L. S. Golsan and E. G. Holt (1914) described 

 the species as a common summer resident of old fields and ditch banks 

 in Autauga and Montgomery counties. One nest was composed of 

 grass and leaves and lined with fine grass. It was suspended three 

 feet from the ground in the crotch of a hackberry bush on a ditch bank 

 in an open hayfield. Another compact nest was four feet up in a 

 clump of sweet gum bushes on the edge of a swamp and cultivated 

 field. It was composed of cane leaves and weed stems, and was lined 

 with fine grass and wool. 



M. G. Vaiden wrote Mr. Bent of finding 14 nests within a cotton 

 patch of three acres in Rosedale, Miss., between May 18 and May 29, 

 1936. Some contained eggs; other were not completed. "Practically 

 all the birds were successful in rearing their young. The cotton was 

 continually worked during the last of May, June, and July, and only 

 two nests were destroyed. The nests in each instance were within 

 3 to 7 inches of the top of the growing stalk. If the bird had selected 

 the branches, all nests would have been destroyed by the plowman." 



O. A. Stevens in a letter to Mr. Bent describes a nest in north- 

 eastern Kansas on a stalk of Jerusalem artichoke {Helianthus tuberosus) 

 in a cornfield. The nest was placed under one of the broad leaves. 

 A. Lang Baily (1954) observed a nest in Colorado on Aug. 5, 1943, 

 two feet up in a thistle {Cirsium lanceolatum) . The site was marginal 

 weed growth of a dense roadside thicket which included a heavy stand 

 of ragweed {Ambrosia trijida) and cordgrass (Spartina sp.). 



In South Carolina, E. E. Murphey (1937) considers the species 

 a widely diffused and abundant summer resident, but absent from 



646-737— 68— pt. 1 8 



