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The chat (Icteria virens) is a small, vocal bird of most clearings within the southern Appalachian forest. It is about 12 cm long. It lays about 4 eggs per clutch, mid-May to late July, and tends then for 11 days, then tends the young for 8-12 days. It lives in woody shrubs, "thickets", and the openings next to forest trees. Although 2% of its food is fleshy fruit in Spring, 35% in Summer, it is primarily insectivorous. It eats ants, wasps, beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, spiders, and true bugs. It is very shy. It responds well to vegetation following forest fires and removal of the forest canopy. It is an example of a bird that would decrease in numbers if a mature-forest-only-with-protection policy was implemented.
In wildlife clearings or specific openings, highly desirable thickets can be developed. Thickets, like forests, change over time and their fruit and insect production changes. The manager can work with local conditions to provide stable structure, diverse plants, mowed or "brush-hogged" pathways for users and foraging birds, all within home-range units of about 1.2 ha (3 acres) for each pair of birds.
In intensively managed areas, predator control may be required (cowbirds, snakes, hawks).
Contribution by R.D. Blackburn (1976), Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061
Submitted by Robert H. Giles, Jr.
A contribution from a project funded in part by US Forest Service, Dr. Mike Rauscher, the Southern Appalachian Forest Hypertext Enclclopedia project, 2002
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Giles, Jr.
Last revision July 10, 2002.