Fig. 12. — Great crested flycatcher. (Gray throat, yellow belly, and reddish tail are field marks for this species. ) 
rchards and shrub areas and in residential habitat 
Sway 1887, 1889). Because crested flycatchers nest in 
ties about 6 inches in diameter, shrub areas and 
ards may be primarily foraging rather than nesting 
tats. Our statewide censuses (Graber & Graber 1963) 
ed no crested flycatchers in orchards in more recent 
’, though they were present in this habitat in 1907 
1909. The statewide censuses also showed 
surable populations of crested flycatchers in urban 
ential habitat only in southern Illinois (Table 2), 
‘eas the Illinois literature contains a number of 
tds of cresteds nesting in northern urban areas 
‘ny 1945, Work 1936, Wilson 1906, Ford 1915, and 
others). Ridgway (1887) callled the crested rare “in 
town,” but later (1915) recorded a high density of crested 
flycatchers (50 per 100 acres) in suburban habitat in 
southern Illinois. This figure may be exaggerated because 
of the small acreage covered (Table 2). If, however, 
Ridgway’s 1915 figure was accurate, the implication is 
that populations of cresteds in residential areas were 
much higher in Ridgway’s time than in recent years. 
Barnes (1890), Loucks (1891), and Gates (1911), all of 
whom worked on or near the Illinois River, believed the 
species to be most plentiful in bottomland areas, but high 
breeding populations of crested flycatchers have also 
been found in upland forest (Table 2). The theses of 
13 
