Yeah, gypsy moth caterpillars stripped the slopes around West Danby pretty bare. New leaves are popping now, but I guess any effect the defoliation may have had on this year’s breeding is a done deal.
Still, this has happened before. Whatever the effect, I’m counting on the resilience of West Danby’s little population of Worm-eating Warblers. For one thing, they’re not limited to the Lindsay-Parsons Preserve, but have been found in comparable habitat over a four mile stretch of the Cayuga Inlet valley wall. During the last twenty-some years individual singing males have also turned up in locations like Michigan Hollow, Hulburt Hollow and Beech Hill Brook, sidetracks just off the target breeding area along the Cayuga Inlet valley. Taken together, all this suggests the local population is well established. One old guesstimate was 25 pairs. That still seems reasonable to me. -Geo > On Jul 7, 2021, at 1:25 PM, Tobias Dean <tdea...@twcny.rr.com> wrote: > > After hiking up to the Pinnacles above the LP Preserve Monday we were a bit > shocked by the more or less complete defoliation by caterpillars [...] -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
